Descent into Redneck-istan

“Thank you,” I replied, stunned, not even bothering to deepen my voice. \n\n“I have [[an unusual favor]] to ask. It's a chance to [[make some money]]."\n

From across the room, my phone buzzed. Brandon, of course. I ignored it. "Just family," I explained.\n\nNiko was surprised. "You really don't want to talk to them?"\n\n"Well, they don't know about you or that I'm here and advised me to keep away from strange men so I've got a lot of explaining to do." He nodded. "Which I'm not ready to do yet," I continued.\n\n"Fair enough." The guy was in a serious mood. Just sipped his beer rather than darting around the place as a nervous host. "Tell me [[what you really do for a living]]."

“No, no. It’s functioning perfectly well. We - um - left the room for a moment, to check on - anyway, the flames.” \n\nThe guard turned his attention to me. “Going somewhere?”\n\nI realized that I was standing in the middle of a house [[wearing snowpants and a parka]]. “No, um, yes, um, I don't know,” I stammered.\n\n\n\n\n

I don't really think that boy in Jaden's class has Asperger’s. \n\nMumble, mumble.\n\nI think he just needs to learn how to use his indoor voice and [[sack up]] a little.\n

He paused, smiled. \n\n“The [[satisfaction]] of winning, of course.”\n

A stack of towels waited on the chair in the corner for the morning. \n\nBut what exactly was I supposed to sleep in? I wondered. \n\nFull clothing probably was the classy choice this [[early]] on, I figured.

\n"You need to get a couple days off next week."\n\n"Why?" \n\nWas this good news? Was it bad? \n\n"Mom and Dad are up from Florida. But they're not at the farm. They're having a [[mini-reunion]] with the cousins, at the house down in Sleepy Eye."\n

He had originally come to the United States as an engineer for Nokia, working in Colorado. When that hadn't gone so well from - well, do you know anyone with a Nokia phone anymore? - he went back to school and branched his engineering skills out into oil and gas exploration. \n\n"As you can imagine, that went over very well with my hippie friends in Boulder. But being able to make a living is also nice." \n\n[[Amen]], I agreed.\n\n\n

“How long am I staying in Minnesota?”\n\n“[[Indefinitely.]]”\n

Two boxes - one with freshly cooked dinner, the other with pre-packaged goods - were the most I could carry back to the front seat of the van. My stomach growled. Chili. Even cold, I know it would be good. \n\nI started to pull the tin foil back.Houston, we have a problem. No silverware. Time to crack into the non-perishables then. \n\nI had only seen these boxes taped up and ready to go, never loaded up. I didn’t know exactly what I would find – chips, peanuts, jerky. But I hoped it would be [[user-friendly]]. Because I was fucking starving.\n

We browsed around to see how child goalies currently protected their faces. Some masks were cheap plastic, others were hundreds of dollars each. \n\nAll were boring.\n\n[[My talents were needed]].

“That is how we’re going to communicate from now on. Plus emails with subject lines that have nothing to do with anything related to Williston. So no one will suspect anything and read them.”\n\n“What, did you see that trick on a cop show or something?”\n\n“Don’t be a smart ass. This is serious. Use cash for everything from now on. And [[destroy this phone]] as soon as we’re done talking. But don’t just throw it away. Take the SIM card out and dip it into a can of soda. That erases the memory."

"Here you go, thank you very much."\n\nI could have ended it here, with the transfer of keys, that camper in my rear view stripped of all my scarves and posters and homey touches, my possessions now crammed in the trunk and back seat of my car.\n\nBut neither [[Clayton or I]] wanted that.

Yeah, I'm just fucking tired because I drive a damn truck 10 hours a day, I reminded him and wished him a good night.\n\nSorry about that I apologized to Niko, who was asleep by this time goddamn it. \n\nThe next day I attempted to make it up to him with a film festival. [[The movies]] I'd stashed in my bag.

First stop, however, was to jettison that disgusting drafty, cramped, smelly white trash camper.\n\nPick up a bottle of Jagermeister.\n\nAnd [[find answers]].

What if he was [[just one of those guys]] who liked having people over to dinner? \n\n...and then kill them?

I was proud of myself. \n\nI kept it together until I heard the garage door close and his car disappear down the street. \n\nI didn’t feel right [[throwing and breaking things]] in someone else’s house. \n\n\n\n

"They look like those girls from the Pussy Riot." \n\nThat was Shelly's take. Because she always tries to find the good in a situation.\n\nBrandon simply [[snorted]].

“What does this guy know about your job?”\n\nWhy did it matter?\n\n“That I drive a van. That it’s for Dickinson Catering. That’s about it. We talk more about my new business.”\n\n[[“What does he know?”]] \n\n

Done with rash actions - for the time being, at least - I settled in with my family like a good Minnesota girl.\n\nI worked on [[getting my life]] back together.\n\nI [[watched]]. I [[waited]]. I [[listened]]. I [[learned]].\n\nAnd [[I left]].\n

What did he mean? I wondered. \n\nDid he [[know]]? \n\nDid he know I knew? \n\nWas he planning on hiring men to follow me and kill me?

The wind will be insane out here, was my first thought. \n\nMy second: This entire venture is insane. Was it too late to turn back? \n\nNo. I would not give my brother this satisfaction. Under the narrow beam of my flashlight, I coaxed a trickle of water from the camper's tiny sink, dried my hands and trudged across a snowy field to [[the big house]] for dinner. \n\n\n

Sure, Faribault County's middle school/high school with a graduating class of 50 wasn't the Harvard of Minnesota public education. But Brandon and I had survived it and come out just fine. Shelly as well.\n\nSending the two kids to the [[best public school]] in the Twin Cities? I knew kids from there - rich kids, now rich adults. Kids for whom everything just worked out. There was no way this was going to work out for Tyler and Brianna.\n\nI chalked this new development up to Brandon just turning damn weird in recent years.

“You can always move out here and help me out with the farm,” Brandon suggested with a smirk as we debated my predicament further. We were on the back porch, me thinking about the amazing city loft I'd soon be giving up and him enjoying a smoke and a beer with my [[sister in law]] as the late afternoon sun began to set.

By 6 p.m., traffic had dwindled to nothing. \n\nBy 8 p.m., so had the food remaining in my stomach, and my patience. \n\nTo kill the time, I visualized hockey mask designs, happy clients, praise for the success of my new business. I replayed favorite movie scenes in my head. Racy ones from tropical climates. \n\n“This is getting old. I think I’m going to [[try to drive back]],” I texted Niko.\n

"Those hockey masks," he said. “I have an idea.”\n\nI sat up, ready to talk more. “So do I.”\n\nWe spent the remainder of the night working on my [[business plan]].

After dinner, that real estate show was back in the Caribbean, with a buyer who had 20 million to spend on an island. A freaking island. \n\n“[[That’s crazy]],” said Niko. “What does one person do with his own island?” \n

My unemployed state became the topic du jour – Brandon had apparently filled Clayton in beforehand, and our neighbor took [[avid interest]]. \n\n\n\n

"Jesus, Melissa!" \n\nNiko shot me a bemused look of “did you really just say that to your brother?” as I painfully raised myself from where I had [[landed on the floor]]. Thank God for carpet.

"It's not about how hard you hit, it's about how hard you can get hit," Brandon reminded me as my energy faded and my confidence flagged.\n\n"Watch [[Ryan Miller]]. Does he get freaked out if the puck bounces in the wrong direction?"\n \n"Does [[Lundqvist]] let it bug him if he's in a slump? Even if the Bruins fans are [[mercilessly taunting]] him?"\n \n

"Crazy about that drug ring. Did you have any idea?"\n\nWith [[each shot]],

"I love steak," I murmured, digging in to great [[satisfaction]]. "Tried to be vegetarian once. Vegan, actually, because I was feeling particularly competitive. That didn't last long."\n\n"Vegetarians don't last long out here," Niko commented. "And vegans? Maybe a week if that."\n\n"I hear people eat reindeer in your country. Is that true?"\n\nHe snorted. "That's just for the tourists."

“[[All this]] and you were living in a camper?”

"Make sure the old bearded guy is Santa before you sit on his lap."\n\nIt was from [[Tristan]].\n\nThen I opened up DVD collection and laptop to select my [[Christmas movie]].

Back in Minneapolis, Tristan's hours had been reduced to part time. Lucky for him, he had never signed a non-compete. He would be able to freelance while his workload dwindled, and I agreed to be his [[first client]].

Of course, not two weeks later, I returned from work to find a note on my camper door. Becca wrote in a surprisingly girlish script, with hearts above the i's.\n\n"We're having a [[little issue]] with the hot water." \n\nI still had her keys, but that next morning I found the locks changed. [[Goodbye]] kindness of strangers. \n\n

Then Brandon texted. It's as if he read my mind. \n\n“Don't call him. Unless you want him to [[go to prison]], too.”\n

"This is really fucking weird and I miss you," I texted Niko at the end of the day. Because it was and I did.\n\n"Do you want to give me a call?" he offered.\n\nNo, no, no, I insisted, me in the middle of a rural Minnesota night so quiet you could hear people breathe and the house creak. \n\n"How are your parents?"\n\n"They're getting old. Like, I know they're not young, of course, but they really looked it this time. [[WTF]]?”

\n“I don’t mean to offend you, Melissa, but I can’t watch another minute of this. It makes no sense. And it’s boring.”\n\nInevitably we'd end up making out like a pair of redneck teenagers. Then, as the closing credits rolled, we'd scrounge through the sofa cushions to locate the remote, then wander up [[to bed]].

By morning, the sky was blue and blinding and the roads clear. \n\nThat cardboard box with the non-perishable items still sat [[next to me]], taped back up in a way that I seriously, seriously prayed revealed no tampering.

Oh dear Christ. Brandon would go through the entire 30-whatever-team line-up if I didn’t buck up and at least pretend to be interested.\n\n“No,” I sighed. “He does not. Jonathan Quick would never give up. Tim Thomas would never give up, even though he is with the Panthers now.”\n\n“It’s because he snubbed [[Obama]] by not going to that White House thing after they won the Cup.” \n\nI changed the subject.

“I [[found drugs]] in the packages I've been delivering for Raymond Fournier. Serious drugs.”

One night, Brandon left the books open after going to bed. So I crept in and flipped through the ledgers.\n\nA shit-ton of leases and transactions. From companies I didn't recognize \n\nand even if you're gone for 10, 20 years, rural counties and the people you do business with never change. Preserved in amber. \n\nSomething seriously not cool about this arrangement. Not [[cool]] at all.

Here's how it would work:\n\nI would start with a consultation. In person or online. \n\nThen I’d develop a design comp for client approval. Would I need special software for this? Did my current laptop come loaded with CAD/CAM capabilities? Probably not. \n\nThen I'd need painting supplies. Then I'd have to think about delivery. I’d need boxes, an account with FedEx. \n\n[[Special insurance]]?

I pulled the slip of paper from my purse. \n\nAll of the numbers had smeared into an [[illegible blur]].

I played the structure's set-up and dimensions out in my mind. Yeah, that would work. I nodded again, still at a loss for words.\n\n"Shelly's got dinner going, if you're interested."\n\nYeah, that's [[cool]], I finally conceded.\n

Panicked but not defeated, I whipped out my laptop for a [[white pages search]].

After lunch at McDonald's every day since December, I suspected I was developing scurvy.\n\nAt least it was entertaining. \n\nThis [[McDonald’s]] was one with a ball pit, which made it popular with the young kids and their moms.

“[[Just one]]. My older brother Brandon.”\n\n

With no time to shower, I shoved the tumbleweed of my hair into a ponytail and slapped up some lip gloss. \n\nRaymond Fournier will have to take me as I am, I declared. And you can’t get too rank when it’s too cold to sweat. \n\nI ripped open a package of Pop Tarts - breakfast of champions, no spinach omelettes for me now - and [[started up]] the frozen car.

"Somebody you got to know out there, obviously. Maybe one of the ladies you designed hockey masks for. Maybe one of your Russian stripper happy hour buddies-"\n\n"I only hung out with them once."\n\n"Or that Scandanavian boy toy. Just [[sit tight]].”\n

His eyes [[widened]].

\nBecca and Larry's farmhouse had been dark for hours by the time I pulled up onto the property. The camper door, stiff from disuse, creaked as I opened it. It no longer felt like home. \n\nBefore crawling into bed for a whopping three hours of sleep, I searched my wardrobe, such that it was. No lingerie - thank you very much, Shelly and your paranoid warnings - but I did find an old-school satin [[pair of pajamas]], like something Hef would wear poolside, highball in hand, at the Playboy Mansion. \n\n\n\n\n\n

Not for a [[Christmas movie]]. I set the Lars von Trier collection away for another day.

Shelly tried to keep my spirits up through inspirational memes from the women auxiliary's Pinterest board: "Whenever God means to make [[a man great]], he breaks him into pieces first."\n\n"Life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent our [[reactions to it]]."\n\n"If Plan B didn't work, the alphabet has [[25 more letters]]."\n\nSeriously, did she even read any of this crap before she [[hit send]]?\n\n\n

Standing at the foot of the porch, awkward silence as she emptied out still more flower pots, I asked her about the laundry facilities in this joint.\n\nDid Becca [[invite me inside]] to take advantage of the industrial-sized farm washer and dryer I know every farm house to possess? \n

“Not planning on it,” [[I promised]].

I rolled up into the liquor store first, then rolled in to the driveway of [[Clayton's farm]].\n\n

\nWhat does one focus on in such desperate times?\n\n[[My job search and career development]].\n\n[[Keeping up appearances]].\n

Yeah, right. \n\nLong dormant, my [[LinkedIn account]] had turned into an overgrown garden of spam. \n\n"It takes - what - like 10 minutes a day to post stuff and comment on other people's shit," scolded Brandon, font of [[advice]]. "You're good with computers. So why hadn't you kept up with that a little bit more?"\n\n\n\n\n

This was nice, I thought, the hour too [[early]] for more creative words. I kept my eyes shut longer than necessary.

So when the text arrived from Brandon, I [[returned]] to the farm.

“Well, what exactly do you recommend?”\n\nDownstairs, the conversation shifted in tone. “You take care, Dad. I’ll let you know what happens.” \n\nShit. I shoved the phone under my pillow and waited for the sound of footsteps on the stairs. \n\nThe phone rang again. “[[Hey Bernie]].” \n\n\n

“Jesus, watch your language. They're our parents, the people who made your existence possible and raised you for 18 years - well, probably even more in your case. So I just need you to crawl out from under that Swedish boyfriend of yours for a few days-"\n\n"He's from Finland. There's a difference," I corrected. "And I'm not always under, [[by the way]]."\n\n

I scoured the internet for customers. My Excel spreadsheet represented every damn hockey program in the tri-state region (North Dakota was off the map now for obvious purposes).\n\nI researched laminates and air brushes and dyes and gels.\n\nI drafted blog posts and social media blurbs for release once I was [[finally free]].\n\n

\nI wondered if he'd change his mind and knock on the door, throw back the comforter like in a made-for-cable movie. "I just couldn't stay away."\n\nThen my mind started to steer into "Law and Order" territory. He’ll rape me in my sleep, then kill me - or perhaps the other way around, if he was a truly sick man. \n\nAlways seemed like a [[good]] guy, the neighbors would say.

That night, I remained awake, staring out the window. I stared at the delicate tattoo around Niko's upper arm that he explained away as “a long time ago, I was young.” Yeah, a girl or a gang initiation ritual on the mean streets of Helsinki, I joked. \n\n"It was after my mother [[passed away]]," he explained.\n\n

Brandon and Shelly had started bickering. \n\nLate at night, out on the back porch, away from the kids when they thought no one would notice, they actually dared to disagree with each other.\n\n"It's [[cool]], it's cool," my brother kept murmuring,stroking her back, to reassure her about something.\n\n

"That's a rugged suggestion from someone who listens to Sufjan Stevens all day," I observed.\n\n"Seriously, they have showers and those showers are super nice."\n\n"You're [[suspiciously familiar]] about trucker life for a digital media intern."\n\n

And it was glorious.\n\nI took an extra 10 minutes in my car after work to put on some makeup. And some perfume.\n\nWhen I arrived, I strode confidently to the bar. I pulled up a chair, surveyed the menu and had the best [[solo meal]] of my life.

I did, animals galore, monsters and zombies, too, even a few creatures from Transformers and Harry Potter. \n\nThe kids were so very happy. \n\nAnd the check Dark-Haired Army Wife wrote me at the end of the afternoon made me so very happy.\n\nIt was [[unexpectedly, stunningly]] large.\n\nIt beefed up my bank account even more. I marveled at my new balance on [[the computer]].\n

Didn’t I know it? My daily drive gave me ample exposure to the mattress warehouses and overstock liquidators that hawked decor out here. \n\nSo, what was this guy all about? I scanned the premises. Niko’s furnishings were nice if sparse. Snow had been cleared from a deck in the back.\n\n“And the bedrooms and bathroom are up there,” he gestured to a steep staircase. “For reference for [[later tonight]].”\n

Finally, when my business was thriving and I had enough to buy a house, 100 percent cash, I’d return triumphantly to the Twin Cities.\n\nWith a little place in Williston so I could [[stay here]] whenever I wanted. And be the host this time instead of the guest.

I pretended everything was fine like a well-raised Minnesota girl, investing the proceeds of this ill-fated venture.\n\n(taxes were going to be a bitch but I'd think of something)\n\nHustling, scheming, growing my business.\n\n(and as my business grew, my old friends returned - funny that)\n\nMy new life, right [[downtown]] by the international market.

"How's [[Brandon been doing]], by the way? You know how he is, stoic and all that. Everything on the farm alright?"\n\n

This is especially important to do when the people in your social circles serve $50 wine out of mason jars. \n\nI desperately yearned to talk to [[my parents]]. They understood bad luck and hardship because 50 years of farming will do that to a person. \n\n\n\n\n

I tried first to tune the van’s radio to [[NPR]]. Yeah right. \n\nMy Wayzata friends - acquaintances really at this point - seemed to believe I would find [[TED Talks]] inspirational, given my underemployed state. \n\nYeah, fuck that.\n\nNiko lent me some [[Euro chill music]].

To emphasize this, he followed up - as only a 23-year-old multimedia [[intern]] can do - with a photo of a grumpy, obese Persian cat, captioned in an unholy, flashing font: \n\n“Sooooo getting laid!”\n\nWhich I ignored. “Of course he’s cooking. There are no decent restaurants around here.”\n

I found myself spending less and less time at Becca's farm and the camper. \n\nShower in the morning at the truck stop. Dinner and sleep at the Korean joint. \n\nThe family who owned the place were the coolest people I'd met in North Dakota so far. They never noticed me crashing there through the night (or at least they never [[said anything]]).\n\n

I shut it off. Our meal had melded itself to the bottom of the pan, whatever it once had been. \n\nThe alarm eventually stopped its bleating.\n\n“Shit. [[Thank you]].” Niko now stood behind me, thoroughly mortified and thoroughly relieved. \n

It took a while, searching on a phone instead of a computer. But I found my answers.\n\nThe sandy powder was meth (and not very high quality meth at that). \n\nAnd those stenciled pouches? Heroin.\n\nI [[texted Brandon]].

And to my astonishment, my niece called me back.\n\n"I need to take this," I whispered to Niko and moved from the couch to the porch out back so he could continue watching TV. Sure enough, two sets of deer eyes watched me from the darkness.\n\n"I need help with my photography class."\n\nPoor Brianna. Brandon and Shelly had sent her and her brother to school [[in the city]] last year, and she wasn't adjusting too well.\n\n

I wanted to listen. I wanted to care. But I just couldn’t deal with it all at that moment.\n\n“Nothing I can do about that,” I replied, hung up and [[returned to the bedroom]].\n

I maximized the efficiencies of my remaining gym classes by picking the hardest ones possible, the ones that left me bedridden for days afterward. \n\nShelly listened appreciatively - she enjoys this girly shit - but Brandon remained unimpressed. "You're unemployed right now for fuck sake, Melissa. You need to be [[practical]]."

Brandon, Shelly and I followed him out to the barn. \n\nIt was a bad day to [[come out]]. Like any walk in post-Thanksgiving Minnesota, this was not a temperate one. Within minutes, my cheeks prickled and my pants were sheets of ice against my legs. I gave up minding the runners of snot and tears slowly coursing down my face. \n\nSuch cold was the cruel joke of my home state, a challenge to human survival. And I was going to be working in the very heart of it.\n\nThis money had better be damn good, I decided.\n

I didn't tell Brandon and Shelly about my new find. \n\nThey wouldn't have believed that I found such an establishment to be clean (relatively speaking), professional (if you ignore the Confederate Flag bikini calendar behind the cash register) and affordable (by Williston standards anyway). \n\nThey wouldn't have believed that I'd been able to pass for a guy (camo and layers help) and get in and out without even a whistle, let alone full-fledged sexual assault.\n\nMaybe [[my luck]] was turning.\n\n

Raymond, though jovial, kept a social distance from his employees, [[blinking Christmas lights]] in his office be damned. He declined any invitations to football parties or happy hours and certainly didn't extend any of his own. Which was our loss. I remembered Clayton telling us that Raymond lived in an epic mansion in one of the fanciest neighborhoods in town.

And, as a good libertarian, Brandon [[insisted]].

“In mysterious Paraguay, you never know what you might find around the corner.”\n\n“Like a Nazi war criminal,” Niko replied, clinking his beer bottle against mine. \n\nAs the itinerant Colorado mountain guide toured and rejected three bargain-priced walk-up apartments, we started [[kissing]]. \n\n

Copyright 2018 People + Places\n\nThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Views of the characters do not necessarily reflect the views of the author.\n\nI'm good. I'm not going to sue or plagiarize. [[Begin the journey]].\n\n

"No," I lied.\n\n"Good. And now for the last of my [[questions]]."

I refrained from sharing the news with [[Brandon and Shelly]]. \n\nThe only person I ended up telling turned out to be my old [[intern]] Tristan.

I was hardly strong enough to lay pipe. (Heh, chuckled Clayton.)\n\nBut you go to the gym all the time, Brandon pointed out.\n\nI didn’t [[know anything about petroleum]].

Please say yes, I thought. [[Please say yes]]. \n\nI wanted to unhitch that wretched camper and drive full speed back to the townhouse.

Raymond cut me off just as I was gathering steam, feeling confidence again. \n\nBut he did so kindly. "I don’t even pretend to understand what you used to do for a living, Melissa. But you seem like a hard worker, and you come highly recommended. You’ve [[got the job]]. Why don't you [[come out]] as soon as you can. We need you."

“No shit. I’m tempted to just hop into my car right now.”\n\n“No no no. [[No one can suspect.]]”\n

\n \nIt had been a rough start, this North Dakota thing. But I'd redeemed myself.\n\n I was sleeping in a warm, luxurious home, enjoying TV, good food and beer with a normal guy. A more than normal guy. Fucking [[sweet]].\n\n\n

Dangerous Work \n\n\n

"Although my imported bath products and alcoholic beverages, that’s another story.”\n\n[[“Hah.”]] I hoisted myself up in order to clearly see his expression.\n

Brandon cringed, as I knew he would. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that last part. And you need to talk to Raymond about getting three days off. He should owe you by this point."\n\n"He won't be pissed?" I inquired. "My major mission in life isn't to make Raymond money and make him happy?"\n\n"Enough with the sarcasm. You've made a fair amount of money from this venture as well. For driving a goddamn van. Mom and Dad are expecting you, so [[make it happen]]."\n

\n\nI learned that the days that fly too fast in the working world [[slow to a crawl]] when you're hitting refresh on your dormant email inbox, killing time on Huffington Post (sideboob sightings and human trafficking!) and shooting out resumes into the black hole of the Interwebs.\n\n

Larry and Becca’s home was a two-story rambler, ramshackle on the surface but sturdy beneath. It had weathered half a century of prairie conditions and showed every blizzard and hailstorm. \n\nIt was a familiar sight. When you run a farm like Larry and [[Becca]], or like my own family, you spend your money on equipment and help, not paint and shutters.

"Raymond's an [[interesting fellow]]. You guys must go way back."\n\n

Shelly moderated, as Shelly always does. \n\n“I don’t think there actually are a lot of women in North Dakota to befriend, Brandon. So let's not give Melissa grief on this one. They could be nice. They could be working their way through school. Why don’t you send over some pictures – clothed of course – so we can become more familiar.”\n\nJesus. The shitstorm a few [[selfies]] can unleash. I thought Midwesterners were supposed to be friendly. Be more sociable, Melissa. Be more outgoing.\n\n I'd heard that shit all my life and now that I actually follow that advice - \n

No self-respecting oil worker would sit around waiting an hour or longer for their van to get restocked either. \n\nBy March, I realized a creeping and undeniable truth. Something weird was going on at Dickinson Catering. For starters, it was taking Gretta and her minions longer and [[longer]] to load the new boxes.

Of course any repairs had to wait until the deliveries were completed. Workers to feed, money to make. The petro-economy didn't slow down just because a delicate flower of a delivery girl was a little cold.\n\nBut I was cold. Freezing in fact. I could see my goddamn breath. I would have given my life savings for a space heater or electric blanket. \n\nWhen I arrived at Niko’s place, the only thing I could think of was [[a long, hot shower]]. The thawing power of steaming water.

“No one.”\n\n“Are you sure about that?”\n\n“Really.”\n\nYeah, like I was going around all single and ready to mingle looking like a Sasquatch and smelling like a yeti. Cue the [[lecture]].

“I don’t remember,” he mumbled, [[fumbling]] through the cabinets in the bathroom and the hall closet as I kept getting in the way.

Blank walls painted a tasteful grey, the walls of any college-educated guy over thirty. \n\nA closet door, behind which lurked what? A bookshelf with the collected works of Herman Wouk? Bondage gear mail-ordered from Germany in discreet brown paper bags? Both unfortunate discoveries from my years of Twin Cities dating. \n\nNiko's closet probably held nothing more threatening than wool sweaters and nicely tailored European shirts. Maybe some hockey gear and old stereo equipment. But you never knew. Men were mysteries. Just [[unpeel the layers]].

Of course it's one of those super-long Northern European names, an unholy string of consonants and vowels that I nonetheless have learned to pronounce flawlessly, so of course Brandon pipes in: "I'm surprised you took the time to memorize all that before you fucked him."\n\n"Why do you care?" I countered back. "I'm a [[grown adult]]."\n\n

"Where the fuck were you, Melissa?"\n\nBrandon yelled this from my phone as I waited at the railroad tracks. Fucking whistle in my ears and now this noise.\n\nThe hell? I showed up for work today, I reminded him. Working as we speak.\n\n"Three hours late."\n\nCar problems, [[I lied]].

"Oh my God I am so sorry!" \n\nThe blonder of the moms, early thirties by my best guess - Jesus Christ, my age - ran after her charge.\n\nFrom behind my balaclava, I mimed what I hoped to be a sympathetic apology. \n\n"Are you sure?" Her face knit up in concern. I nodded again. \nFlailing bundle in tow, she returned back to her table in the corner. Her darker-haired companion - a sister by the looks of it - picked up [[the conversation]] where they had left off.\n

Touchdown! It landed softly and slipped into the narrow opening beneath the strap. \n\nThen I hugged my knees to my chest and [[feigned sleep]].\n

Tristan used to be my intern. The mythical unicorn among millennials who actually worked, which somewhat excused his hideous hipster glasses and inexplicable boy skinny jeans. \n\nHe hadn't been too thrilled about the provenance of my new job, being either Canadian First Nation or pan-Asian in background. I wasn't quite sure and never quite knew how to ask. "Wave hi to the water protectors on your way out." But he got the fact that money doesn't exactly grow on trees - and that sometimes a person can't be too picky in how they earn it.\n\nTristan had been the [[only one]] among my coworkers who never judged my decline in fortune. He just wished me good luck and actually kept in touch as promised. \n\n

"Good to meet you, Melissa. Clayton's told me a lot about you."\n\n[["Don’t believe a word of it."]] \n\n“I have only three [[questions]] for you, Melissa."\n\n

Before I had dismantled everything, I had copied Niko’s phone number onto a scrap of paper, which was now tucked away in a corner of my purse. Lacking a pen, and with my drawing materials locked away in storage, I had improvised with an eyeliner pencil. [[Clever me]].

Unusual. On the true crime TV shows I used to watch with my mom while canning vegetables at the farm, that word had been code for swingers, key parties and more recently web cam porn.\n\nCall me a sheltered farm girl, but I like to think that my barometer for such skeeviness is [[really good]].

Fucking hell. Back to [[work]]. I had a job.

"Why can't I rent one of these?" I texted Brandon and Shelly once with a photo of a new apartment complex.\n\n"Because saving money's [[no easy task]] in today's world," my brother answered back. "Make every penny you can out of this opportunity."

"What, would you rather that he roofie you?" was Tristan's remark when I complained. Yes, Mr. So Gonna Get Laid. "You just met the guy."\n\nTristan had a point. It hadn't even been a week. I tried to keep this in mind each night as Niko and I headed off [[to bed]].

I didn't want anyone to go to prison. \n\nAnd so I took myself and my Cricket phone and Clayton’s white trash camper and drove myself [[back to Minnesota]].

"Whatever you do, don't say you hate the cold!" [[Shelly]] cautioned as we did a dry run after dinner. \n\nBut I do hate the cold, I thought. I hate it with every fiber of my being.\n\nHowever, I hated being broke and unemployed and feeling like an utter fuck-up even more. Tossing more and more fruitless resumes out into the big, heartless libertarian pit of the Internet, looking into a future of multiple minimum wage jobs at Chili’s and Big Lots. Collecting welfare. Where do you even go for this? Or do they just mail you a check?\n\n\n

Twelve hours later, “Cherry cream cheese dessert” arrived in my inbox. \n\n"Just got back from Clayton's. So I know a few things now."\n\n"How much did Clayton know when he got me this goddamned job?" \n\n"Don’t bag on Clayton. He thought you'd be part of [[the legit business]]."\n\n\n

Because that camper was just a damn depressing place to return to after work.\n\nOddly enough for a 32-year-old woman (but maybe not so odd, considering this is the Midwest), I had very rarely visited a restaurant alone. \n\nIn the city, you always went in a group, for girls' night, or on a date (fortunately that film school douche had been big on trendy dining). And back on the farm, you hardly went at all. Maybe a fish fry. Maybe a big lunch or potluck after church.\n\nTime for [[a change.]] \n\n

"I'm driving a goddamn van with chili."\n\nOnly silence.\n\n"He's some friend of Clayton's in the middle of North Dakota. We don't fucking know him."\n\nNow not even the train whistle.\n\n"I freeze my ass off and work myself to the bone. Seriously, Brandon, why is this [[such a big deal]]?"

Two a.m. and five microbrews later, I was in no shape to get behind the wheel of a car. \n\nNiko declared it, and I agreed. \n\nHe showed me to his bedroom, then gently closed the door behind him as he took a blanket downstairs to the couch for his own sleeping arrangements. \n\nI was disappointed at first but then realized with satisfaction that I had a whole room and bed to myself. And that was a surprisingly [[good]] thing.

Light-Haired Army Wife one seemed to be the nicer one of the two, the more Christian if you will. \n\nGod must have overlooked her prayers, however. Because the woman had absolutely no control of her kids. To cope, she was always sucking down a big serving of some kind of fruit-flavored soda and nothing else, as if a liquid lunch was [[the most she could handle]].\n

I [[fielded emails]] from the outside world. \n\nOne text I did answer, in between stops, was [[Brandon’s]].

Plus the broken record he always winds up when I go back to the farm for Sunday dinner.\n\n"Get a house. Stop throwing your goddamn rent money down the toilet. You're 32 - old enough. And get married one of these days, for Christ’s sake. But not to that film student. He was an idiot."\n\nBrandon, though arrogant, is often correct in his observations. It's a [[struggle]], but I must give the man his due.\n\n

Shaking, I returned the box to its spot in the back of the van. Was that the right place? I thought so. But could I be sure. \n\nShaking even more, I drove back to Dickinson Catering. \n\n“Take the rest of the day off, Melissa,” Raymond told me as I handed in my keys. “You’ve had [[quite a night]].”\n\n“Thank you, Mr. Fournier. Will do.”\n

“I am so sorry,” I said.\n\n“No, I am. I should have remembered about the burner.”\n\nAs Niko opened the windows to clear out the air and I poured cold water over the steaming mess, someone knocked at the door.\n\nWho the hell [[could that be]]? \n

[[Nothing.]]

“Hey, Tristan, can I look at the comp designs next week?” \n\n“Hi Dad, yes I did hear about that reality show. No, I'm not planning to audition.”\n\n"Yes, yes - the XL Pipeline protest. It's going to be a hot [[mess]]."

Same with the soap.\n\nIn my short stay as guest, I had used up all of the luxurious bath products. Imported, too, I guessed based on the fact that I wasn't able to decipher a damn thing from the labels.\n\n“Hey! I think we have [[a bit of an emergency]] up here!”\n

“Here’s your day’s shipment.” \n\nStill behind my balaclava, I presented my clipboard for the crew camp managers to sign, same as before. \n\nBut I saw them in a new light now. I wondered how much they knew. \n\nWere they mere flunkies, innocents like myself, or were they [[in on the game]]?

What if this was [[just a meal]] after all, and he was one of those annoying people who just liked to make friends wherever he went?\n\nYou know, "every stranger is a new connection." Like someone from the Faribault County Rotary Club or one of those annoying networking events. \n\n

My day-to-day [[problems]] have always been a bit different than his. \n\nDoes the product manager want the logo bigger - yet again? \n\nDid I get through the day without eating gluten? (And believe me, shunning wheat doesn't exactly go down well in a farm family.) \n\nDid the DVR finally, finally figure out how to record the [[Independent Film Channel]] correctly, so I didn't end up with 10 hours of Caillou or some shit like that? \n\nThe [[struggle]] is real, I tell you.\n\n\n\n

Niko crawled in next to me. “How are you doing?”\n\nMmmrph, I replied. \n\nTo uncurl me from fetal position, he started [[kissing my hair]] and stroking my back.

I was thrilled by his reaction. For the first time in recorded human history, a graphic designer had been called rich. \n\nAnd that graphic designer was me. \n\nI savored the moment until [[Niko continued]]. \n

“Are you fucking kidding me? All of the women in North Dakota to befriend, you find strippers. And gold-digging foreign strippers, too. Goddamnit Melissa, you have a knack for finding trouble.”\n\n“They seem [[really nice]],” I offered. "Really down to earth. And smart."\n\n

\n“Turn over,” I ordered, eager to change the subject. “You have muscles on the front side of your body, too.” \n\n“That sounds suggestive.”\n\n“I was talking about your arms and chest. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”\n\nThen from the nightstand, my cell phone rang. As I flailed to answer it, I lost my balance and [[landed on the floor]].\n

Niko grabbed my arm. “You can’t answer the door in that robe. Trust me.” \n\nAnd so I threw on the snowpants and parka I’d abandoned in the entryway earlier. Catching the Medusa's mop of my hair in my shadow, I threw on the hat for good measure. And just in time.\n\n“Sorry to interrupt you, sir. [[Everything okay?]]”

“Change of plan,” he barked. “Raymond knows our parents aren’t sick.”\n\n“How?”\n\n“He has people in Florida who saw them down there. And his people in Minnesota told Clayton, who told me.”\n\n“So, [[do I drive]] back?” \n\n\n

Tonight I'll pull into a parking lot. Tonight I'll walk in and reserve a table for one and eat a real meal like a real human being again.\n\nBut I never did. Every time I found myself a drive through, ordered myself the least-toxic offering available and drove myself back to Clayton's depressing white trash camper to escape into old movies and stupid YouTube videos.\n\nBrandon and Shelly's texts and messages piled up.\n\nFinally, I answered back to [[reassure him]] I’d neither fallen into a well nor been sold off into a global human trafficking enterprise.

One afternoon, dark-haired Army Wife grabbed her sister’s arm and looked straight at my table. \n\n"I win the bet. I win the bet.”\n\n[[What?]]\n

The crew from Wayzata and Edina sent ecards - professionally produced to show off their perfect boyfriends, fur children and - increasingly now - real children to flawless effect. Or they sent generic gifs of singing elves. When you care enough to click your mouse.\n\nA Greenpeace ecard arrived from St. Louis Park. “May your holidays be warm and bright.” The picture was a baby seal. Of course it was.\n\nMost had been sent well in advance, during office hours. \n\nOf these tidings, [[only one]] arrived on Christmas itself.\n

Jesus H. Christ.\n\nMy jaw dropped.\n\n"You still there?" Shelly's voice piped up from the phone.\n\n"Are you [[sure about this]], Brandon?" I asked.

Or so urban legend goes. I personally didn't shop there.\n\nAfter winning numerous AIGA awards, plus a flattering mention in Communication Arts, pg. 63, lower right corner.\n\nI found myself suddenly and unceremoniously out of work.\n\n[[How wrong I was.]]

\nPlenty. For the "laconic farmer type," sometimes the guy does not shut up. And not like I listened to him. \n\n[[More about Brandon.]] \n\nScrew that. Let's talk [[about me.]]\n\n\n\n\n

Hmmm, I thought. I wasn’t exactly having luck with opportunities that required a brain.\n\nShould I [[stay]] or should I go?

What the hell? We didn't even like those cousins.\n\n"Thanks for the advance notice," I told my brother. "Do you know how long of a trip that is for me?" \n\n"Well, they still think you're living in Minneapolis working at your old job, so you pretty much have [[no excuse]] not to show up."\n

“Hi Gretta! Hi Raymond! How’s it going?” \n\nKeep it cheery, but [[not too much]].

The [[first to go]] were people I knew at the ad agencies, of which Minneapolis actually has quite a few. Too many, in fact, and when they all collectively discovered that members of the general public will design cat memes for free, they realized the obvious - who needs a 20-designer creative department anymore? \n\n

\n\nI rested my head on his chest, the cotton of his t-shirt soft against my cheek. Carefully I raised my head. He wasn't sleeping either, but remained [[too gentlemanly]] to do anything about it.\n\nI shifted my gaze out the window. \n\n[[Tonight]], so different from the nights in the camper, freezing my ass off - how quickly and suddenly life can transform itself.\n

Families everywhere. Noise. A waiting area full to overflowing.\n\n"Just you?" the perky girl at the front stand inquired, clip board in hand.\n\nJust [[no]], I decided, and eased my way out.

“Life is good.” \n\nThat was the latest statement on the [[marquee]] outside our family church back in Faribault County. Shelly sent me a photo, with my nephew Tyler and niece Brianna sulkily slouched in front of it. \n \n"But how am I supposed to find a parish out here if I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," I protested quite innocently. \n \n[[Life is good]] indeed. And it just kept getting more and more interesting. \n\n\n

Any one of them could have thrown me into a back room and killed me, I thought, especially with the crew camps empty in the middle of the work day. \n\nHow long would it take for anyone to find me? For anyone [[to inquire]]?

“That happens."\n\n"We should take a few days off. Go to Florida sometime. You need to meet them, and we need the sun. I think everybody would get along."\n\n"I'll get the time off. Just tell me when," he texted [[back]].

That morning I bid farewell to that camper for what I hoped to be a long, long time. I threw a few movie DVDs into my backpack.\n\n"Bite me, Becca," I waved my middle finger, cold be damned, as I drove off her farm for what I hoped to be a very, very long time.\n\n"Tonight, I'm treating for dinner," I texted Niko at 3 p.m. - my route dragging like never before - and [[stopped by Red Lobster]] after work.

“Yep, all good,” I texted back. “Just taking a moonlight walk."\n\nAnd of course Shelly called back. Because she's all into that personal touch stuff and because Brandon probably wanted her to spy a bit more on me. “Great. I hear it’s really pretty out there on Becca and Larry's farm.”\n\n“My sister in law,” I explained as I slipped the phone back in my pocket. “They worry about me.”\n\n“[[How many siblings]] do you have?” he asked.

People know when they forget something important. They know when they've fucked up.\n\nAnd I knew when I heard the faint scratches outside and watched the knob turn.\n\n\n[[See what happens next...|https://lifeinanortherntowncom.wordpress.com/]]

I scanned my eyes over a fold-out bunk, a set-in booth and table, dorm fridge and two-burner stove. Jesus. I went to college for this?\n\n"How's the heater?"\n\n"Heaters plural," Clayton corrected, gesturing under the sink to controls I would learn how to operate. Despite my attempts to tough out this cold, he noticed me shivering. "You'll want to get some gear at Cabela’s before you [[head out]]."

I ended up [[staying]] over. \n\n[[Slut]] that I was. \n\nI stared at [[the walls]].

[[Gretta]] worked in the back, stirring the big pots and overseeing the whole operation. \n\nTwo wiry Guatemalans shuttled the big foil tins back and forth. \nThe tattooed sous chef cut, diced and assembled as a big hulk of a man - Raymond's brother? - started the whole assembly line moving with burlap bags of potatoes, gnarly bunches of carrots and turnips, massive slabs of frozen beef and pork. Off to the side: a bunch of brown cardboard boxes already taped up. \n\nNon-perishable goods, the hulking brother explained.\n\n[[What I didn't tell]] Shelly...

I [[got the hell out]] as soon as I could.

"You safe? Raymond pleased with your work so far?"\n\nIt’s pretty hard to fuck up driving a van, I told him. I couldn't [[even think about]] other ways to get into trouble.\n

"You have the day off today?" Aforesaid gentleman kissed me on back of my head on his way toward the door.\n\nNo, I replied. But I'd figure [[something]] out.

I left a note, of course.\n\n"Found a studio in the city. Thought [[it'd be best]] to be out of your hair."\n\nWhen in truth, I could contain my confusion and rage no longer.\n\nSitting around and acting normal.\n\n

\nOn the spectrum my ass. Back when we were growing up, we [[just]] called it difficult.\n\nTristan disagreed with this assessment when I related the conversation - those millennials are so sensitive - but as for me:\n\nI was beginning to like these siblings.\n

Niko raised an eyebrow. Perhaps Brandon had a point about the deterioration of my language.\n\nMy sailor’s mouth must not have been too much of a deterrent, however. The very next evening he was at the restaurant and waved me over to his table. After green teas and bowls of soup, plus a foray into the Wichita loft district, he told me about [[his life]].

The robe kept [[slipping]] off my shoulders. \n\nEspecially as I climbed up the shelves of the linen closet to examine that crawl space.\n\nSeemed like a logical storage area to me.\n\n\n\n

No, no, no - Clayton hurriedly [[assured me]] that this would not be the case.

"No, that's not it," he muttered when I thrust a cannister of I don't know what in his face.\n\nSorry I can't read the damn labels, I thought as the sash on the robe kept [[loosening]]. \n\nI tried another bottle. "Is this what you want?"

Brandon and Shelly called Christmas morning to wish me well. Brandon blabbed ad nauseam about the upcoming Winter Classic, and Shelly brought the kids to the phone to say hello. Tyler missed his sleeping bag. Brianna was fighting with her mom.\n\nThen our parents called my cell phone from the [[sunny climes]] of Florida. \n\n

Shelly sounded relieved, but told me to be careful anyway.\n\nBrandon was [[all business]].\n\nThey asked me to describe my [[coworkers]] at Dickinson Catering.\n\n

A poster ad at the airport would be a must, get me out in front of all those wealthy executives and investors who flew in each week. \n\nThen I’d [[branch out]] to Grand Forks, Bismarck, all those hockey towns and schools in the state. \n\n

\nAnd I learned that you really, really start looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner with your brother and sister in law when you’re unemployed. More so than even the usual Sunday dinners because holidays are when a farm really puts on a [[show,]] meal-wise.\n

I hid out until it was safe. \n\nIn that abandoned campground - for weeks upon weeks, someone must have shut it down for good - I kept my head down and my [[mouth shut]]. \n\n\n

“They have security camera footage of a person in a snowsuit. Delivering drugs to a crew camp. And someone identified that person as you. The eyebrow ring, Melissa. We told you not to wear it.” \n\n"The fuck, Brandon. [[Who identified me?]]"\n\n

"There," I said, placing the paper plate over the child’s stunned face and tying the back. "You're a goalie. Now go mind your net and leave me alone for 60 minutes."\n\n“Yeah, I’ve been keeping up with my [[design work]],” I sent a text to Brandon after work.

“He’s been really supportive.”\n\n“Does he know how you got the money to start it?”\n\nOh shit. But I could not lie. “Yeah, I showed him my online checking account. [[Only once.]]”\n

The next morning, my full work week kicked off. Fuck my schedule, fuck my life. Five days to figure out all the details, all the while [[acting as if everything was normal]].

I had that hygiene thing figured out again. (Thank you truck stop.)\n\nMoney was yet again flowing into my checking account. (Lots of it, too. They weren't kidding when they said people can make good coin out here.)\n\nI was going to take myself [[out to dinner]].

My brother had no good answer to that. He just told me, yet again: "Don't fuck this up."\n\nContinue on to [[March]].\n\nGet another side to this story.

Warroad, Duluth, International Falls. \n\nThat's where the hockey is, so that's where I drove to pitch my wares.\n\nNormally a quiet drive. Normally a peaceful drive. \n\nExcept when [[the headlights]] started appearing in my rear view.

Like a good liberal, I [[hesitated]].

I interrupted with something like "I'm from Minnesota, I know cold" and a snort, to which he just raised an eyebrow with a "bitch please, I think I know cold a bit more." And then he went on and on about propane heaters blowing up and a bunch of physics stuff I didn't quite track.\n\n"Go back, get a [[change]] of clothing, whatever you need," he ordered.

I’ll ditch the camper. I’ll [[drive back]]. I'll explain everything.

Yep, Mom and Dad were up from Florida. On the far side of the living room, they held court. \n\nHad they always looked this [[old and frail]]?

I put on a sad face. “My parents. It’s a [[long story]].”

Don’t go to bars, it's not safe. If you really need a beer, get a case at Walmart. But go during the daytime.\n\n"Yes, father," I rolled my eyes. I was already living like a hermit and cloaking myself in a fleece burka. How much more careful could I be?\n\nYet Brandon knew how to knock me out of my torpor. Stupor. Whatever. This [[cold and filth]] - enough of it. Enough of this bullshit. Time for a change. \n

I shrugged. What would I do with free time anyway? Not like I knew anyone out there and not like I'd be fucking a swath across the state. One phrase haunted me from every North Dakota oil field blog I read: “The odds are good, but the [[goods]] are odd.”

Fast, blinding, out of nowhere and unrelenting.\n\n"They tried to drive me [[off the road]]!" I hissed to Shelly over the phone, hoping she'd be a conduit to my brother to - what, make him do something? Make him feel like shit?\n\n

But my niece was having none of it. "Mom was always bitching when I was taking pictures around the farm. Now she's all like 'explore your talents'."\n\nYeah, that sounded like Shelly. In the end, I had [[only two words]] for it: fucking weird.

After I handed in my van keys for the night, I wandered by Raymond’s office.\n\n“Mr. Fournier?” \n\nSmall man was sitting at his desk, nearly lost behind piles of paperwork. “Melissa!" he popped up. "Good to see you. What can I help you with?”\n\n“I need a few days off next week.” \n\nHe [[raised his eyebrows]]. People just don't take off work in the middle of a gold rush.

"So he'll just call," I asked, smoothing down my hair. Like it mattered. I’d be driving a van. \n\nBut maybe it would. Raymond was [[a guy]] and I was a fair to pretty girl. Cute by Clayton standards, which I assumed to be equivalent to North Dakota standards. \n\n

Ryan Miller always struck me as pretty jumpy, I reminded him, hoping to move him onto a less annoying subject. But oh no, that [[hockey as metaphor for life]] lecture was just beginning.

My phone buzzed. Niko. “You okay?”\n\n“Yep all good,” I quickly texted back as I investigated [[the other contents]] of the box. \n

I am a designer not a writer, I elaborated to the sea of polite smiles, my friends who would not be living in a camper for the next six months. \n\nAnd no, that didn’t mean that a graphic novel was in the works, either. \n\nI also corrected them on my motivations. This North Dakota junket was not an art experiment, a graduate studies research project, a Morgan Spurlock documentary or a curious foray into [[how the other half lives]].

\n\nI took the call in the unfurnished spare room. “What’s up with [[Mom and Dad]]?” I asked, just in case my voice traveled.\n\n

It was a small affair this year - just us, them and the kids, no neighbors or usual hangers on. Mom and Dad joined us by phone from Florida - a wiser alternative to last year, when we all flew out and my teenage nephew nearly got arrested for shooting pucks on the boardwalk because adult conversation is boring. \n\nBoth Brandon and my [[sister in law]] seemed unusually tired and tense, despite all of the rewards for hard work that smacked me in the face - the new pick-up truck, the teenage kids now sent to a good school in the city to get a leg up in life (so they wouldn't end up like me).

\nbody[data-tags~=Amina] { background-color: saddlebrown; }\nbody[data-tags~=Amina] a { color: white; }\nbody[data-tags~=Richmond] { background-color: darkgreen; }\nbody[data-tags~=Richmond] a { color: white; }\nbody[data-tags~=Danny] { background-color: midnightblue; }\nbody[data-tags~=Danny] a { color: white; }\nbody[data-tags~=Ksenia] { background-color: slateblue; }\nbody[data-tags~=Ksenia] a { color: white; }\nbody[data-tags~=Tristan] { background-color: olive; }\nbody[data-tags~=Tristan] a { color: white; }\n\nbody[data-tags~=Brianna] { background-color: gray; }\nbody[data-tags~=Brianna] a { color: white; }\n\n\n\n\n

I [[raised an eyebrow]].\n\n\n

Otherwise known as “Melissa’s weird fucking movies." We're quite different in temperment and taste, my brother and I. Just ask him. \n\n"What's your sister like?" \n\n"Artsy. Lives in the Cities." \n\nLike that's all you need to know [[about me.]] \n\n

"I like how you can talk politics and current events and books and philosophy and then just turn around and show me a video of lemurs in pajamas," I slurred after a few beers. I'd fallen into a shallow crowd out there in Minneapolis, I realized. Shallow and humorless - definitely not the recipe for conversational [[satisfaction]].\n\nTwo-hour dissertations on skin-care regimes. (And this from guys as well as women) Ardent debates on cococunt milk vs. almond milk. Like - I grew up on a farm. I knew half the crap they were talking about to be scientifically suspect.\n\n"Thank you for not being stupid, Niko," I eventually declared. \n\n

I buried my $400 iPhone under a mountain of discarded CDs and broken jewel boxes, and I took the SIM card out of my pocket to meet its death in a can of Mountain Dew. \n\nBut clever me, I [[had a secret]].

Shelly offered to track me down some because she's helpful like that. She told me about the flea market she had [[discovered]] on her latest trip to the city.

Who was I kidding - NPR out in the middle of oil territory? Guns, God and country occupied the FM dial. I listened to one station just for entertainment, but the sound of a radio host who scorns evolution was just too depressing, even for a non-scientist like me.\n\nBack to [[music]] for me.

Aren't the crews supposed to be driving in now? \n\nI'd lay in bed in the mornings, basking in the sun and the breeze from the window, waiting for the sounds.\n\nSilence. \n\nI'd pad down barefoot to the kitchen for a [[cool]] glass of orange juice. Everyone was still in bed. What kind of alternative farm universe had I stumbled into?

We stopped in front of a camper out back. Clayton handed me the keys. It was mine for as long as I needed it.\n\nI graciously declined. “My car’s in good shape. But thank you."\n\nNo, I misunderstood, said Clayton. The camper was for me to [[live in]].\n

Eleven hours, 11 minutes. That was the time it took to reach a place we visited every 5 years or so and seldom thought of in the time in between, family branches united solely by bloodlines and ancient Jello mold recipes. Unlike Niko's family. He was always on the phone with his father or their cousins. They must have gone broke before the Internet and Skype.\n\nI left at 5 a.m. I chugged Red Bull and blared the music to [[keep myself awake]]. \n\n

I was not expecting this. Not at all.\n\nDangerous Work: Melissa's Story\n\n[[Begin the journey]].\n\n\n\n[[Legal language and disclaimers]]\n

As soon as the garage door opened, I bolted through the garage and past Niko cooking dinner in the kitchen.\n\n“Fucking freezing, so goddamn cold. Be down in about half an hour!” I shouted. \n\nI know, not even an offer to help, incredibly rude. But I was chilled to the bone, and single-minded in my [[pursuit of warmth]]. \n

"That's no way to live," he declared. Tomorrow night, after work, you'll stay here. And after that." \n\nYeah right - I started. \n\n"I know what you're thinking - oh he just wants to get laid. Which is true, but that's beside the point right now. People die in situations like yours. They [[freeze to death]]."\n\n\n

I showed him some photos from the past year - parties, festivals, all of that. He zoomed in on one for a long time. "You have an eyebrow ring." \n\nYeah, I shrugged. "Why don't you wear it now?" Because Brandon and Shelly told me not to, I replied. Because they said it would freeze to my face in the prairie wind and cold.\n\n"That's bullshit," Niko laughed. "Do you have it with you?"\n\nI dug through my purse and restored this piercing to his [[satisfaction]]. "There. You look more like you now."

Niko helped me weatherize my car for the drive. Then we grilled steaks, out on the deck this time. We talked about Tristan’s plans for the website, including a Snapchat app for customers to send photos in of their hockey inspirations.\n\nNiko was skeptical. “Isn’t that what kids use to send naked pictures to each other?”\n\nWe'll [[find a way]] to block that, I assured him.\n

I’d start with the Army Wives and their friends for building my clientele. \n\nI'd approach the schools, pitch the local paper to write a story. “Profiles in entrepreneurship” or [[something like that]]. \n\n

Twenty stops. Four hundred and twenty miles to Dickinson and back with many, many side roads in between waiting to be [[discovered]]. \n\n

A fellow diner. A [[good-looking youngish guy]], as far as I could tell in the shitty light. \n\nI'd noticed his shadow before, always reading a book or magazine so I figured he wanted to be left alone. \n\nMaybe he was an investor. His silhouette had that look about it. Most likely he worked a weird shift, like everyone in the area.

I tried to soap up in advance. I warmed my towels over the heater. I experimented with every possible angle and contortion to minimize the shower time and maximize the water coverage. I even stopped washing my hair for a while. \n\nFinally, I [[asked Becca]] if I could use the fieldhand shower I knew every self-respecting farmhouse to possess. I'd be discreet. I'd be clean. Just a few minutes and a few gallons of water a day.

Or maybe, if I allowed myself a [[sultry]] fantasy in this grimy, frozen wasteland, he was seeking something else entirely. \n\n

He knew I'd be there. I'd sent him a text earlier in the day, during the time I knew Brandon would be out in the fields and not answering calls.\n\nI'd rested up the night before at a Motel Six. Showered, powdered, fired up and [[ready for some truth]].

The roads to Williston were already a traffic jam as I approached the big metal warehouse of my workplace. \n\nI took a deep breath and headed to [[the lobby]], snowsuited legs swooshing against each other as I walked.\n\n"Melissa!" \n\nRaymond Fournier's Skype image motored toward me for a crushing handshake. Wow, he was not very tall at all. Reeked of Camel Lights. After a five-minute safety orientation, he left me to [[his minions]], who [[sent me on my way]].

His face was serious. But not pissed. “Melissa, you can [[stay here]] as long as you want.”

“Martin Brodeur would never give up."\n\n"That's Mar-TANN, Melissa.”\n\nAt that point, the axis of my world permenantly shifted. I entered an [[alternative universe]].

After two hours on the highway, daylight was pink in the sky. I pulled into the rest stop. Two missed calls from Niko, which stung even though I was expecting them. Six missed calls from Brandon, plus a text marked “urgent.”\n\nOh shit.\n\nBrandon [[picked up]] in the middle of the first ring.\n

"It's unlocked!" \n\nSo I just walked on in. I'd caught him just putting two massive steaks into the oven. Hell, yeah, this was a step above Applebee’s. I set the six-pack of beer I had brought onto the counter. “7-11’s finest.”\n\n“So we can start right in. Resourceful. Please forgive the furnishings. There's not a great selection of [[good design]] out here."\n

Maybe he had [[tired]] of this hole-in-the-wall's limited menu. \n\n

\n\nIt reminded me of somewhere in Minnesota, somewhere in the Twin Cities. Something from my old life.\n\nHanging back behind a fern, I scanned the tables. Investors. Engineers. Management. Did a delivery girl belong here? Did I belong here?\n\nUmm [[no]], I decided.

And it worked. \n\nBefore long, visions of meth bags and pirate-stenciled pouches were the last things on my mind, and we were observing the snow day as such occasions were [[meant to be observed]].

“You just need to disappear for a while, then reappear in Minnesota when it’s safe. You already have a camper to live in. What about that Cricket pre-paid phone I told you to get?”\n\nI still had it. I never used it. I felt like a senior citizen or Person of Walmart carrying that thing around, but yes I [[still had it]].\n\n\n

It was a trick, cupping my hands over the cell phone speaker so the nature noises of birds and wind, surprisingly loud, wouldn’t sneak through. \n\nI made up some story about dining with friends and volunteering at a homeless shelter. \n\nThen I [[took inventory]] of my emails and ecards.

Brandon would love this, I thought, my brother always one to comment - and not in an appreciative fashion, either - if the gas station attendant or supermarket clerk greeted us with [[an accent]].\n\nI made a mental note to bring up this latest encounter in our next call. "At a Korean restaurant, too! After I got off work from my Canadian employer and hung out with my Russian stripper friends!" Just to piss him off.

At that, of all things, he laughed.\n\n"Don't you fucking mock my plight," I argued, but smiling because could one not? \n\n"You need to be more patient," he declared.\n\n"I'll remember those words."\n\n"Oh, I'm patient. You're talking to a guy who spent two winters without cable. I waited [[two years]] for the third season of Game of Thrones."\n\n\n\n\n\n

Sketching and anything related to my shuttered hockey mask business just made me angry. Any kind of romance movie just made me sad. And so I watched and rewatched my indie flicks, steering towards the grimmest and most depressing. War crimes in Bosnia. A botched abortion in Romania. See, [[things could be worse]]? Right?\n

I did, and I saw Raymond Fournier being led away in cuffs by North Dakota's finest. "Local businessman implicated in drug trafficking ring. Kilos of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine found." \n\nThis was not the kind of entrepreneurship spotlighted in the newspaper’s [["Faces of the Boom"]] series. \n\n\n

Resumes are still a thing? I guess they are when you need a job.\n\nI added new work to my online portfolio, kerning and rekerning the captions in the apartment I'd soon be unable to afford as my brain reeled. \n\nWhat the fuck just happened with the perfect life, the life I had sorely underappreciated until now?\n\nInto the wee hours I kerned. And kerned some more. It was the [[practical]] thing to do, so I did it.

"We're going to a cookout over at Clayton's tonight, why don't you come with, Melissa?" Shelly peeped around the corner in another one of those hideous draped floral dresses she loves.\n\nYeah about Clayton, I wanted to say but just let it lie.\n\nInstead, I made some excuse about an order and a deadline (not quite a lie, because people were starting to buy at that point).And by the time they all stumbled back home, I [[was gone]].

\n"Then, on your next day off, [[drive back to Minnesota]]." \n

As he ducked into the bathroom to change, I snooped through his drawers and closet. As I emerged from his bathroom, he greeted my silken vintage pajamas with a well-deserved what the hell? "You need a cigar and a snifter of brandy," was the exact comment.\n\n"Are you cold?" he asked after switching off the light, and even if said pajamas had involved a full-fledged snowsuit, he would have put his arms around me and I would have [[snuggled in]].\n\n\n

Shelly took over from there.\n\n"These things happen, Melissa. People get carried away. I'm sure he hasn't been with a woman in a very long time."\n\nOhmigod just shut up, Shelly, just shut up.\n\nBut she kept going: Where's he from? How old is he? [[What does]] he do for a living?\n\n\n\n

"And when they toured the bedroom," Niko added.\n\n"There's where the magic happens."\n\n"I think they're going to try out the mattress after the realtor drives away."\n\nI [[raised it up a notch]], perhaps too much of a notch, but what the hell.

“I’m so sorry to put you to all this trouble." \n\nAnd I did genuinely feel bad as he scrambled around to search for replacements, the consumate host. \n\nShit, why couldn't he just wear Axe like other guys? Why did he have to order in the expensive stuff? No, yuck, that would be disgusting. \n\nI tried to be helpful. "Maybe I can find the extras if I know where to look. [[Where do you keep them?]]”

“So do I.” Should I have volunteered that? [[Becca]] gave me a look but didn’t pursue the matter.

So I just collapsed on the couch and pounded my fists against my legs. \n\nFuck you, Brandon. Fuck you, Clayton. Fuck you, Raymond Fournier. \n\n[[May]] you all rot in hell.\n\nAnd fuck my life.\n

"So, Dickenson Catering, how did you [[learn about]] them?"\n\n

God bless the Internet - it [[knows]] and finds all, even the things a person should not be legally searching for.

"Be the [[beast]]."

In any case, the evening ended with Cara and Dan bickering over some shabby walk-up by the canals and Niko inviting [[me]] to his place for dinner the following night.

\nI did [[what I had been told]]. \n\n

“You’re not over at that guy’s place, are you?”\n\n“Where else would I be?”\n\n“You cannot tell him.”\n\n“Why not? I have [[nothing to hide]].”\n\n

Just as a day of sitting in a damn van, no standing desk here, was likely to give me middle-manager spread.\n\nThat I had [[discovered]].

\n"Is this how you set up this thing?" Brandon messed around first with the back of the computer, then the angle of the screen.\n\n"It says here that when a call is received, a telephone icon will appear and the screen will change to the caller's face," Shelly read from the printout of the instructions. “We should use this when we talk with [[your folks]], Brandon.”\n\nDespite the high tech gadgets that had infiltrated our farm over the past 20 years, my brother maintaine his [[skepticism of technology]]. Still listened to CDs. Only recently bought a phone with Internet and games.

"These are [[really good]]," she declared.

Any nascent mothering instinct I'd ever had was immediately extinguished.\n\nMy artistic instincts, however, awakened. Once I set up my station in the living room, I drowned out the shouting and painted the masks, thinking back about the ones that had caught my eye through years of NHL Network viewing with my brother. \n\n“[[Draw]] a zebra!” one little boy requested. “A lion!” shouted another.

“I'm sure they're just too busy with the holidays to call you back,” Shelly chirped as she spooned my [[brother]] a second helping of mashed potatoes. \n\nIn my shoes, she would have landed a new job right away, probably by the very next [[afternoon]] and probably something useful and well-paying like a welder or plumber. Shelly was capable like that.

Becca and Larry told me about their farm, the town and the other campers who had made their fields home: a few sketchy types from the north, a family - nice folks! - who recently closed on a place in Dickinson, most recently a soldier fresh from Afghanistan.\n\n"That didn't end well," Larry said, without elaborating. \n\n"I think he suffered from the PSTD or whatever it is," Becca remarked. "It's nice to have a girl for once. You won’t play Metallica all night or bring [[strange men]] back, will you?”\n

\n\nHaven’t heard from you in a while. Everything okay?\n\nJust then a text from Brandon came in. He of the "keep to yourself, don't talk to strangers" orders. \n\n“All’s well,” I pecked back, annoyed at the interruption and not feeling obligated to explain. "[[All good.]]"

“Go [[back to work]] this week as usual." \n\n

I spent a disproporationately large chunk of my remaining savings on that gear and bottles of wine. As hostess gifts for my many going-away dinners. \n\nWhich seemed like a raw deal, as I soon realized that I'd be providing the evening's entertainment as well.\n\nMaybe it was because I'd grown up on a farm, where work is work. But it shocked me how this new venture caused [[quite a stir]] around the tables of Edina, Wayzata and St. Louis Park.\n\n\n\n\n

“I knew [[that one]] wasn't a guy!" she proclaimed, pointing.

"Not all businesswomen in the Netherlands look like that," Niko commented.\n\n"I think she is totally checking out Dan the friend."\n\n"I think Dan the friend wants to be more than friends with young Cara. Watch how he looks at her."\n\nHe did have a gleam in his eye when the realtor pointed out the expansive walk-in [[shower]], I pointed out.\n\n

“How are your parents?” Niko asked.\n\n“[[Everything’s fine]],” I assured him. “Now, let's work on your fear of being molested.”\n

Work [[camps]]? This sounded a little bit too Handmaid's Tale for my tastes.\n

The day of [[my departure]], a picaresque snow covered the farm. \n\nAs I sat in the driveway, postponing the turn of the key in the ignition, I checked my email. The St. Louis Park friend had finally written. About time, I thought. \n\n"Fracking,” said the subject line. “I know you need the money. But couldn’t you work in something that doesn’t [[ruin the earth]] for our children?"\n\n

\nFor seafood and shellfish in a landlocked prairie, the Admiral's Feast was a hit. \n\n"Your accommodations," he gestured to the bedroom when it was time to sleep. "I can go downstairs like before or stay here. Whatever you're most comfortable with."\n\nWho was I to [[kick a man]] out of his own bed?\n\n\n

"Shelly's [[old handgun]]. I put the bullets in the cupboard by the batteries and emergency flares."

And that night, after driving around, collecting my thoughts and scalding my skin and my clothing beneath a hot shower at a Motel 6 near the Iowa border, I rolled up to [[the farm]] exhausted and enraged.\n\n

By the time I showed Niko the pictures, I was exhausted but energized. I sprawled on the couch as he fiddled with my phone, staring at the TV, not really watching but plotting instead. \n\n“Now it’s time for the couple to make their decision,” came the announcer’s singsong voice. Yes, we were still watching this.\n\n"I think we can definitely strike Casa de Fiesta off the list," the wife declared. "The kitchen was just too outdated."\n\n"You're in Bolivia," I muttered at the screen. "[[Come down]] a little."\n

The cops were notoriously understaffed in Monte, Brandon informed me. His mode of communication: an email that started with the subject line “Grandma’s refrigerator dessert.” \n\nHow did he know these things? I wondered. I had time to think about all of this, now that I had headed [[back to Minnesota]] with absolutely nothing waiting for me.

\n"Then tell your guy the same thing [[if it makes you feel better]].”

"More wine?"\n\nBefore I knew it, it was December.\n\n\n\n[[Time to go west.|https://lifeinanortherntowncom.wordpress.com/]] \n\n\n\n

These expenses were adding up.\n\nHow equipped was I to handle this overhead? I hopped online and logged into my bank account. \n\n“Here’s [[what I have for seed money]],” I showed Niko. \n\nI wasn’t usually one for sharing such personal financial information. But this was business.

“He means crew camps,” Brandon corrected, remarkably informed about an idea that had just come up. Because housing was scarce up there, that’s where transient workers without families [[stay]], he explained. Just like a big dorm or Army barracks.\n\n\n\n

"Do I miss the city?"\n\nI pondered his question. I missed the choice of any kind of food I wanted and the convenience of being able to get it right away. I missed the art museum. But I didn't miss the noise. Or the traffic. Or working my ass off, one eye glued to my cell phone, just to afford the privilege of living there.\n\nAs for concerts and shows? Sure, not a lot of that out here in North Dakota. But all you had to do was pull up YouTube and watch to your [[satisfaction]]. \n\n"I'm too old for standing in lines for watered-down drinks and shouting over crowds," I realized.\n\n

He stopped me. Too dangerous. "Listen to some music. Or draw something. Distract yourself.”\n\nOn the subject of distrations, which I didn't share with him, my bladder had ached [[for the last three hours]]. \n

I might just even call Niko tonight, I plotted, squinting through the swipes of the windshield wipers on the cold, rainy drive to the Minnesota border. \n\nDrug ring be damned, I was going to stop at a [[real hotel]]. I was going to enjoy a few [[creature comforts]] before Clayton's camper yet again became my temporary home.

Niko’s friend from Wyoming, the professor from the bar and the only other liberal in the state. "Yes, quite a snowstorm for April." \n\nI remembered to breathe and retrieved my phone from its hiding place.\n\nA text was waiting for me. “You still there, Melissa?”\n\n“Yeah. [[Slight interruption]].”

I did not know this country. I was a stranger in this land. How did I get here? When would I be free to leave? \n\nMy brother, a man who had barely mastered English and who had never once set foot outside the 48 contiguous states, had just schooled me on my [[French pronunciation]].\n\n

The next morning, we barely made it to our respective workplaces in a timely fashion. And the following evenings, back at the townhouse, we barely made it up the stairs. Or to the couch. Or - in a particularly interesting turn of events- the laundry room. \n\n “I couldn’t concentrate [[all day]],” he'd greet me, kissing my neck and unfastening the snaps of my snow gear. Probably not the sentiments you want to hear from the guy who designs infrastructure for highly toxic, highly flammable petroleum reserves, but that was not my concern.

"Many times. A great city."\n\n"A bunch of us stopped by in [[high school]]. After we toured Paris for a week. Didn't get to smoke pot, unfortunately.”

He led me through the concept and wireframes.\n\nThey started with a dark screen. The hockey mask was very small in the middle of it. It spins as it grows larger. Of course the spinning feature works on phones and tablets, too.\n\nDamn, who knew [[my former intern]] possessed such talent?\n\n

I went through roughly the same ritual on New Year’s Eve, this time with “Office Space” to celebrate the soulless cubicles, meaningless reports and bureaucratic bullshit I now missed, in a messed-up kind of way. \n\nBy the time [[January]] rolled around, I realized I was turning into a hermit. Or the Unibomber. I was talking to myself, neglecting my hygiene and diet, developing odd habits. A few more months of this and I would officially lose my shit. \n\nI realized it was time to get out of that camper and start getting my damn life back on track.\n\n\n\n

The premise was simple: plop into a random city [[a single or a couple]] - gay, straight, bi, trans, any age or color. The love for granite countertops transcends boundaries. Then tour three properties and see what "ticked the boxes." \n\nSome of the destinations I had been to, like Paris, San Diego, Chicago. Many I wanted to see, someday, when my bank account and life circumstances could support it. Others – like Abilene, Jakarta, Waco – not so much. \n\nBut I watched anyway, these 30-minute tales of the customer, the realtor, the three abodes and the big [[decision]].

Motel Six. Bingo. Cheap enough to pay for with cash and relatively safe, at least out here in the country. \n\n[[Clever me]].

After I conquered that disgust, fear, guilt and regret - not to mention isolation ("Do Mom and Dad even know where I'm at?" I demanded of Brandon. "Got that covered," he retorted) - [[boredom]] was my biggest enemy in the Monte campground. \n\n

How the fuck do these people qualify for a mortgage? I wondered the first time I watched the [[show]]. And the second. And the third.

"The kids look good, Shelly," [[Mom said]], glancing over at Tyler immersed in his new Xbox and Brianna sulking on the couch.\n\n"I hear prices are up this year. [[Is that true?]]" Dad asked. "You all must be making a killing, Brandon."\n\nI watched my brother lie with an aplomb I never knew he possessed. And I watched our father listen to updates about the farm, his land, with the detachment of a man who was just done with it all, this work stuff - and happily so.\n\n\n

“What are you learning so far?” Shelly asked me because of course she did.\n\nThat the van's sliding door was likely to give me [[amazingly ripped arms]]. Eventually.\n\nThat I would sell my soul for those [[seat cover beads]] the Somali cab drivers used in the Twin Cities. \n\nThat the crew camp managers were too busy unloading my deliveries to [[even think about]] raping me. \n\n

I exchanged my long underwear for his robe and twisted the shower dial.\n\nAs I waited for the water to warm up, I [[tipped]] the shampoo bottle to get a head start on the festivities.

For me, the urban legend of hypodermic needles and vision of shared snot was never far from my mind. \n\nBut I got a kick out of [[watching the kids play]]. \n\nUntil a [[little urchin]] in a snowsuit hurdled headlong into my legs, moist fists coating my snow pants in Cheetos dust. \n\n

I felt my blood pressure return to normal. Gretta's lunchtime delays no longer annoyed me. More time to create.\n\nAnd then Dark-Haired Army Wife’s demon spawn hurled himself at me. Because now playtime involved a child-sized wooden hockey stick, this was no small assault.\n\nThe first time it happened, I tried to be tolerant. By the fifth time, I had [[had enough]].

I knew that I didn't want to leave. We spent evenings on the patio after work, wrapped up in blankets, drinking from a flask.\n\n“Summer is very nice out here,” he whispered so we wouldn't spook the deer away. “There’s a lake close by, so you’ll need to trade in those snow pants for a swimsuit. Which I am personally looking forward to seeing. Music festivals. Picnics, barbeques. There's one my coworkers throw every Fourth of July that's become quite a tradition. If we get some time off, we can drive to Montana. Go hiking. Go camping.”\n\nNo thank you on the camping, I told him. But yes on everything else. \n\nMaybe it would all work out, [[some way]].\n

"I seriously doubt you couldn't figure out how to stream it. And you're talking to a chick who's postponing all the trappings of middle class life while living in a camper."\n\n"When not living here, that is."\n\n"Point taken. [[Happy Valentine's Day]], by the way."

We skipped the gas-fired stove entirely and returned upstairs to pick up where we’d [[left off]].\n\n

Instead I fell into the crowd and the melee and let instinct take over. \n\nI fell into my role of little sister, weird artist and background player to all the other important stuff [[going on]], like marriages and births and planting and church potlucks.\n\nNo husband, no kids, no responsibilities. Didn't even belong to a church group or ladies' auxiliary, so why did I even exist?\n\nWhat had I ever accomplished with my life?\n\n \n\n\n

"Hey, [[you're back]]," Brandon greeted me, looking up from the books in Dad's old office.

We were going to die. \n\nGrabbing the robe, I bolted downstairs. \n\nThe dinner. Still on the stovetop. The [[burner still lit]].

Two lanky youths from the kitchen loaded my van with steaming, surprisingly aromatic pallets of food. I [[started up]] my engine.

Why yes, nothing quite says birth of Christ and [[Christmas movie]] like a giant rabbit.

“Because there’s no bathroom on the ground floor. It’s a big design flaw by the builders." \n\nAnd then he realized the bit about the bedrooms. Blushing, he messed around with the TV remote until a [[familiar jingle]] changed the subject.

Hell to the no. I was not going to a godforsaken prairie town in the oil fields to [[work as a stripper]].\n

Professional massages made him nervous, he said. Just his luck he'd drift off and wake up to someone groping him under the sheet. Then demanding money for it. "You hear rumors about these places, even here.”\n\n“[[In North Dakota]]? You can’t be serious.”\n\n\n

Pay cash for everything, I reminded myself. \n\nFortunately, once I got [[back to Minnesota]], I discovered that a fugitive living off the grid had few shopping needs. Beer. Toilet paper. Nasty canned foods that could be prepared in a camper.

Treat your damn self, girl, I said to myself as I scoured the downtown and outskirts. No more drive-through or Walmart cuisine for me. \n\nFryin' Pan. Cracker Barrel. Bitch, please.\n\nA little hole in the wall Korean joint on the edge of town. "Those places are the best," Tristan the hipster opined when I texted him a photo. But it was seriously a shack. And I was up for a treat. On I drove.\n\nA strip club. Okay, I understand the steaks are good but [[no]].\n\n\n

The years with the film student had left me in good stead, film-wise at least. \nRomance, comedy, documentary, drama. Which to choose?\n\n[[Donnie Darko]]? How about [[a bitter Dane]]? \n\nThe [[Red, White and Blue]] trilogy? [[Wes Anderson]]? \n\nFinally, [[the “Clerks” series]]. \n

Let's look at real life instead, he grabbed my arm and led me to the back patio. \n\n“We need to be quiet,” he whispered as he slid the door open. He put his arm around me and pointed to the forest out back. As my eyes adjusted, other pairs of eyes, luminous ones, popped out of darkness to meet my gaze – nearly half a dozen in total. \n\n“They come out after sunset. From the same spot in the shelterbelt. Some of the younger adults, I've watched them grow up.”\n\n[[The movies]] collected dust that night.\n\n

Jesus Christ. "Are they questioning anyone in Williston?" \n\nNo answer.\n\n"I have to give back the money,” I typed [[frantically]]. “There will be tax records."

It was a way to [[pay my bills]].

Meanwhile, Dark-Haired Army Wife watched on.\n\n"Are you going to wipe your princess' nose, or are you going to let it drip all over the toys and the other kids?"\n\n"From the smell of things, I think bathroom time is too little, too late for that one."\n\n"I really don't think Cayden needs another Chicken McNugget. He's [[round as a house]] as it is.”\n

Food service. This is what my career had become.\n\n“The job’s yours if you want it," Clayton explained, his cheek now inflamed with a chunk of Skoal. \n\nWhen would I start?\n\n"They need someone right away. Raymond just wants to meet you on Skype to put a face to the name. And make sure you’re hardy and trustworthy.” \n\nHardy. I thought of this the next day as we prepared for my Skype [[interview]] with Raymond Fournier, the owner of Dickinson Catering.

“I can’t stay,” I blurted out, [[suddenly panicked]].\n\nMy head was reeling. God, I wanted to stay but I had forgotten my backpack. My goddamn backpack, back in the camper. \n\nI needed time to collect my thoughts. "I'm wearing the same outfit I wore yesterday."\n\nSo? he shrugged. Like this was New York Fashion Week.\n\n"You're not fucking grossed out by this? Are you serious?" Forget watching my language at this point. This evening and situation was swiftly deteriorating - like my entire life. And I had no one to blame for it but myself.

I typed in the last name, checking the spelling twice because it was a little tricky.\n\nNo luck. Niko's phone number [[wasn’t publically listed]].

I’d googled the name after my conversation with Brandon. [[May]] the answer be better than I feared. May this all be an urban legend or exaggeration. \n\nYeah. Not so much.

Jesus, consider yourself [[celebrated]].

"Where should I put these?" Shelly was lugging a big box of Communication Arts across the snowy yard. \n\nSomewhere within was the May 2010 issue with my name on page 63, bottom left corner. I directed her to a yet-unoccupied nook in the camper. Good for ballast. Or kindling.\n\nAfter she left, I sensed a figure standing behind me. It was my brother. He motioned for me to be quiet and pulled out a [[small box]] wrapped in a Minnesota Wild scarf.\n\n

Can I work long hours?\n\nEven as Brandon rolled his eyes and Shelly frantically motioned for me to reel it in, I gave this hapless Quebecois a florid description of our ever-shortening project timelines, our crazy deadlines, our pitiless all-nighters.\n\nDid it [[work]]?

“Becca’s a bitch,” I told Shelly and Brandon later that night. "Seriously, that shower costs her nothing."\n\nFrom our warm farmhouse with three working, hot showers, sitting on his ass because it's winter - yeah, that was my [[favorite part]] - Brandon jumped in to scold.\n\n“You be nice to her. I don’t care if she has all the hot water in the world, if you just don’t like her tone or if you go the next six months like an unwashed peasant. She’s renting you her land, and you need to be nice to her.”\n

Point one for sensitivity, Melissa.\n\nI contemplated the past 24 hours. My eyes became accustomed to the dark. I felt like a goddamn owl. \n\nHow could life have [[taken such a turn]]?

In a note taped to the camper door, Becca and Larry directed me to a nearby church for services and a potluck. \n\nThe good Midwestern girl in me almost considered it. \n\nThen my common sense prevailed. I was no stranger to that rodeo. The setting would be cramped, the sermon dull and the food inexplicably laden with Jello and marshmallows. Those factors alone would negate any bliss zoning out in a heated room under pretty [[blinking Christmas lights]].

\n\n"After you get to Minnesota, not before, call Raymond and tell him that your parents had an emergency and [[you had to drive back]] to take care of them." \n\n

Her speech was slower than I remembered. And shaky. And it was [[not even]] near the end of the day, so tiredness was no excuse.\n\nHad she always spoken this way?

I pulled over to call the switchboard of Dickinson Catering. One of the kitchen guys answered the phone. \n\n"Just stay put," he advised. "Use the emergency blanket in the back if you need it."\n\nNiko advised the same thing. He was stranded at his company’s offices in town. \n\n"Conserve your gas. Conserve your cell phone power. And stay calm. You’ll be fine. Send me a text every hour or so to let me [[know you're okay]]."\n

Not when it's the place you work and the place you sleep.\n\nI kept a gun beside my bed and beneath my computer case. \n\nwhich would have freaked the fuck out of my liberal neighbors but [[oh well]].\n\n

I loved their stout little legs and rosy little cheeks and unapologetically unfiltered little personalities. \n\nThey laughed. They cried. Every so often one would hurl a plastic ball out just to cackle with glee and see what would happen next at this crowded sub-arctic [[McDonald’s]]. \n\nSometimes - no, often, and more and more since being laid off - I found these kids more tolerable than adults.

From the SWAT and DEA personnel I saw in the background, I knew this was serious.\n\nI spent the next days frozen in fear, too scared to sleep, eat or even watch my trove of DVDs.\n\nIn an email with the subject line "Seven layer baked bean dip," Brandon sent me [[another message]], not even trusting the Cricket phone for this one.

Eastern Europe, right? Right by Russia? Or Ukraine? Famous for? I had nothing. I was just a redneck farm girl who lived in a camper.\n\nOkay, back to the TV. And good thing we returned, too. Coltish American Cara and "her friend Dan from home" were meeting with their real estate agent, a woman straight out of central casting for [[Dutch bombshell]] or porn star.

From the back porch, Brandon gave me a look. \n\nYep, [[not even]] five minutes in.\n\nDon't say a thing, that glare ordered me. You're still working in the creative department downtown. You still live in that overpriced city apartment. No new business. No new boyfriend.\n\nWhich pretty much limited what I could talk about with everyone.\n

“No. You just keep on going. But don’t call anyone – not Dickinson Catering and not that guy.”\n\n“Niko. He has a name, you know.”\n\n“Of all the men in North Dakota, you couldn’t at least have hooked up with an American? Jesus, Melissa. In any case, you can’t contact him again, not until after all this shit goes down and [[possibly not ever]].”\n

I kept my window shades open.\n\nthe better to see out and know what I was dealing with. It was the second floor. I could jump if needed.\n\nI took extra care to lock the door of my business [[every night]] at dusk.

\n"You have to stay in Minnesota and [[you don’t know when]] you’ll be able to return." \n\n

A bit impressed, I hoped as he [[asked]].

My first night in the camper, alone in the field, both heaters allegedly worked, but I hardly slept. Every gust of wind. Every crackle of snow. I clutched the box with my gun in my arms, my freezing body huddled around it in [[fetal position]].\n\n

By the time my van reached the open road, snow was flying fast and furious. Trucks and even semis rested [[in the ditch]], some voluntarily, others not so much. \n

I must have dozed off at some point, however, because before I knew it, I was up with Becca and Larry’s chickens. Sore and [[awakened by cocks]] - a phrase I noted for future reference should ever I be inspired to do a stand-up routine about this experience. \n\nAs for the sky? This was still dark. Fuck you, winter solstice.

As Becca cleared the dinner plates away, her manner shifted abruptly from hospitality to business.\n\n“If you need anything, leave a note in the mailbox or on the porch. We have to be out on the farm a lot, so you’re pretty much [[on your own]].”\n

By 10 p.m., I could wait no longer. I exited the van. I took a quick glance. Then I squatted over the snow as ice pelted my face. \n\nI followed this with a side trip to the van’s back door. Chili. Non-perishables. Why hadn't I thought of this before?\n\nRaymond couldn’t legally sell day-old food. Besides, this was an emergency. If he complained of any shortages, he was a douche. What kind of employer starves his staff? \n\nIndeed, why hadn't I [[thought of this]] before?\n

The days settled into a numbing routine.\n\nRoll out of bed dreading work.\n\nStraggle through the day, Red Bull in hand, watching the clock and eying those [[new apartments]] on the side of the road with envy.\n\nWhile away those precious hours of freedom doing nothing. \n\nSuch was the [[American way]]. \n\n

“Why can’t I tell people now?”\n\n“Because you have to [[put a few hundred miles]] between yourself and Williston first.”

"Who just about fucked up her only source of livelihood today."\n\n"But I didn't! Raymond was cool-"\n\n"Not to me he wasn't."\n\n"So? [[Why]] do you care, Brandon?"

They would freak out and tell [[me]] to pack my gun in my garter belt because the threat of menfolk needs to be treated like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie.\n\n"Serial killers search specifically for lone women like you," said Shelly, who always tapped into her foster child past for extra cred on such things.

It was a done deal. Now came the journey. we found ourselves back out at Clayton’s farm.\n\n"Let me [[show you]] something."

"Yes. But not a CDL." \n\nThat’s okay, this Raymond guy reassured me - surprisingly swiftly. \n\n"Now for the second of my [[questions]]..." \n\n

"Oh, they're probably drunk," Shelly tried to reassure me. "You know how guys get up there."\n\nYeah, I knew. I knew not to zone out at the wheel. I knew not to stop at unattended rest stops or gas stations. I knew to try to time my visits before nightfall - harder and harder to do with winter shortening the days.\n\nBut these tactics didn't protect me when I made a [[trip to the studio]].

My phone immediately buzzed with an actual call. \n\nDue to decibel level, I had to hold the receiver [[far from my ear]].

“Keep out of trouble and don’t talk shop.”\n\nYes my libertarian overlord. I must have mumbled something like that, and not quite under my breath, either, because Brandon grew even more pissed off.\n\n"Seriously, Melissa. Getting wasted with people you don't even know. Showing up to work hungover to drive a truck for a man willing to pay you [[more money]] than you've ever made in your life." \n\n\n

closer to my ear than necessary in the [[early]] morning quiet

I learned that a kitchen chair can bear the weight of two bodies, even under duress. \n\nI learned that oak table dragged over from Colorado or Wyoming or wherever is hard under the back - but you don't really notice after a while.\n\nI knew that if nothing else good happened during this whole North Dakota adventure, this morning alone would make the ordeal worth it.\n\nWhere [[have you been]] all my life?I had the good sense not to say out loud as I watched Niko gather his coat and get ready for work - again.

First area of bullshit to address: the hygiene situation. \n\nHave you ever attempted a shower in a camper? In the middle of winter? It's just a fucking joke. \n\nIt never warmed up above the vaguest definition of lukewarm. And even with the heater, the interior air temperature rarely rose above 55 degrees. No wonder Clayton always returned from ice fishing [[filthy]].\n\n

"Where do the women who work in the oil fields stay?" \n\nAt first I waited in the kitchen with Gretta as my [[coworkers]] restocked my van.\n\n"Apartments.” \n\n“They don’t stay in the crew camps?”\n\n“Women aren’t allowed there. Unless they’re prostitutes." \n\n\n\n

He shrugged. “[[The work]] is interesting. And, of course, [[the money]] is good.”

"My son - that little brat over there - is having his birthday party on Saturday. I bought a bunch of plain plastic goalie masks, and I was thinking it might be fun to have somebody paint them up. Like the pros do in the NHL. And you look like you might have a talent for such a thing.”\n\nI didn’t know much [[about kids]]. But art I knew. And hockey. \n\nI double-checked my schedule with Dickinson Catering. Miraculously one of my few days off coincided with the day of the party. The next day at McDonald's, I gave the Dark-Haired Army Wife the thumbs-up.\n\nAnd then I scrambled to [[get ready]]. \n

And I got some responses.\n\nLike when my still-employed (promoted even!) friend told me to "just say yes! open yourself to the universe!" (Everyone has a friend like that.) And I found myself scaling the stairs of a skeevy warehouse loft, where "art" meant "naked," not "design." \n\nI fled at once each time. I have my standards.\n\nAlso, to be [[practical]], it's damn cold out here in Minnesota. Even in October.

Now it was the cheesy online chamber of commerce my jobless and near-destitute circumstances forced to embrace.\n\nNo more scorning the network as the cheesy domain of Rotary Club members, people who spell the words “sales” and “success” with dollar signs and strangers from India blasting you with typo-filled articles about tipping points and the sharing economy. \n\nI now found myself a fallen hipster bereft of connections. [[My job search and career development]]? Really? But this was the practical thing to do, so I did it.\n

We’ll see about that, I thought, but had [[the sense]] not to say.

I wouldn't have to, Clayton explained. The job involved a van. I would be transporting food back and forth between Raymond's business and the [[work camps]].\n

I avoided McDonald's as Gretta loaded me up, scavenging lunch from gas stations at my colon’s peril. \n\nI didn’t want to face the scrutiny of Dark-Haired Army Wife or be forced to to decline orders from her friends. \n\nLucrative orders now I [[wouldn’t be able]] to fill.\n\n

Here swarmed the crowds of men Brandon and Shelly warned me about. I squeezed myself over to the automated counter, picking through my greasy paper bag for grilled chicken...fingers? Nuggets? Things, I decided. I kept my parka, hat and balaclava on throughout. \n\n[[I also kept to myself]]...

\nHe soundly mocked me for my use of archaic DVDs. "So much for Netflix and chill." And he made an honest effort - unlike everyone else in my life but Tristan and that film school student, that douche - to appreciate my taste in cinema. \n\n"Interesting," he'd comment to Lars Von Trier, mumblecore, that Argentinian indie that was just one long take, 10 minutes of silence as a dog gets lost in the woods. \n\n“It’s a [[meditation on life]],” I explained. “Terrence Malick is [[a genius]].”\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

How'd those get there? A leftover from a thrift-store trawl?\n\nMy phone buzzed. [[A text]]. Was I back at the camper? Everything okay? \n\nThat was nice, I thought after pecking something - a bird emoji just because? thank you? - back and setting in after at the end of this unexpected day.\n

"A designer. A city girl. You've come a long way to make a living," he [[observed]]. \n\n"So have you," I replied. I didn't tell him about how I was living in a camper.\n\nWe rolled into another episode. A young couple in Houston, looking for a starter home with room for their Shih Tzu. "Fur child," I snorted. \n\nNiko shared my disgust. “The sweater. Why does a dog need a sweater in Houston?\n\n"And I just knew she'd be a [[twat]] about the granite countertops."

Gretta wasn’t the friendliest of ladies. I tried to chat her up during my midday break, while the kitchen guys restocked my truck. Because that's what a good Minnesota girl does. \n\nBut ultimately silence gets frustrating. Before I started getting a complex over the whole thing, I moved my break time [[next door]] to McDonald’s. \n\n

He pulled up a chair. "I'm Niko."\n\nHere in the most redneck, remote [[part]] of the United States, I was surrounded by a veritable United Nations. \n\nHe must have seen that "not from around here" expression on my redneck face because he felt compelled to explain himself. "I'm originally from Finland."\n\nHow does one go about this witty banter thing again? I was sorely out of practice. "I’m originally from Minneapolis. That’s where my accent [[comes from]]," I replied, a bit bitchier than intended.\n\n\n

\nFirst of all: I think you mean "woman."\n\nSecondly: I resent being called "broken."\n\nThirdly: Easy with this God stuff.\n\nBut Shelly meant well, and so I kept my [[mouth shut]].

Back in Minnesota, my brother’s thumbs flew. The messages appeared on my screen in [[quick succession]].

Then a cold snap hit North Dakota. It was just the same time the heater conked out in Dickinson Catering's high-quality van. Awesome, simply [[awesome]]. \n\n

I ran my hand across the tape. \n\nDid it look compromised? I squinted. Not really. Not from a distance.\n\nBut would “not really” be [[good enough]]? \n

Niko [[stared]] at the screen.

[[It didn’t last.]]

The [[steaks]] were [[delicious]]. \n\nThe [[beer]] was [[refreshing]] and the [[conversation]] [[good]].\n\n

"Melissa!" \n\nDark-Haired Army Wife in hostess mode. Who was this chipper, grinning imposter? And who were these 20 young men tearing up the kitchen? For Army brats, these boys seriously lacked discipline, [[careening]] around in circles on the new parquet floors and shooting Nerf balls at each other like they were Seal Team Six on the hunt for Bin Laden. \n\n\n

\n\n[[Draw]] a picture of astonishment - happy astonishment - and you'd have my face at that moment, examining my bank account online.

"I guess that leaves Casa de las Lilas." The spendthrift woman on the screen sounded hesitant, yet excited, a feeling I could relate to. \n\n"I guess so," the husband grinned, and they hugged in a stage-directed outburst of passion.\n\nNiko [[hit mute]] on "La Paz, three months later" and tossed me my phone. \n\n

Hell to the no. I was not going to a [[godforsaken prairie town in the oil fields]] to work as a stripper.\n\n“Do you have any better offers?” Brandon reminded me.

Maybe she feared the unfortunate public scandal if my icicle of a dead body was to be found on her land. \n\nMaybe the sermons form her holy roller prairie gospel church - you know, the "do unto others" stuff - had finally sunken in. \n\nFinally she caved and tossed me a set of spare keys for the basement. \n\nFor a brief and wonderful time, bath time was the [[favorite part]] of my day. I twisted the rusty key, shoved the heavy door open and heaved my backpack with all its lotions and potions in. Piping hot water - and me, underneath it for 20 minutes. Bliss.

\n\nClayton telling this man "a lot" probably involved a fantasy with a hay bale, me spread-eagle on top and Skynyrd blasting in the background. \n\nBut [[Raymond]] Fournier was an old-school kind of guy, I could tell. He was more the type to torment his staff with Ole and Lena jokes at the Christmas potluck than lascivious harrassment. He probably saw me as a daughter or granddaughter, not a sex slave. \n

"Sit down," I ordered. \n\nI grabbed a paper plate from the counter. I punched out two sloppy eye holes. And I started drawing. \n\nA fierce tiger appeared on the plate. Not bad. I added a few flames shooting from the side of his head. Then I took two ribbons - Midewestern women are crafty, we can never pass up a textile or two - from my bag and [[affixed them]] to the sides. \n\n\n\n.

And that's how I came to the idea of my new business. \n\nGirlboss me. I knew hockey. I liked art. I knew a [[good goalie mask design]] when I saw one.\n\nAnd these kids and families had more money than they knew what to do with.\n\n

The next day at McDonald's, I sensed Dark-Haired Army Wife's gaze over my shoulder during my lunch break. More specifically, the condensation from her refilled soda dripping onto my parka. \n\nNo self-respecting oil worker spends their lunch hour drawing stylized art deco flowers. I shielded my sketchpad from her view. Like that did a lot of good. Because she just continued to stand there, watching.\n\n"[[Move your hand]]," she ordered.\n

\nThis of course got him all excited - a guy, from the north. \n\nHe whipped out his laptop and pulled up the website of some guy in Sweden.\n\n"You can do this. Easily." \n\nYes, I could. I would impress the shit out of [[the parents]] at this party.

I stood dumbfounded before the faucet apparatus and hesitated before digging into the expensive-looking shampoo and soap. \n\nMy thermal long underwear from Cabela’s looked shabby and inappropriate balled up on the new tile floor. \n\nBut with the first jet of hot water, [[all was forgotten]].\n

When Lockheed got hit, I thought it was just a government thing – the shrinking of the budgets, the pruning of the staff. When 3M's crew fell, I assumed a dip in the Post-It note market.\n\n[[I should have seen the layoffs coming]].\n

"I probably drink too much," Niko admitted, raising his glass to his lips nonetheless. "I know I have been lately, which is why I've been going to the Korean restaurant. Healthy food. No liquor license. \n\n"One of the investors has been up our asses as we put the new equipment in place. He's obsessed with meeting this deadline, It's connected to the stock price. A lot of money for them, but for us, we can't inspect things to our [[satisfaction]]." \n\nHe sighed. "Somebody will get killed, and they'll end up making money. That's how these things go. But back to more cheerful subjects."

It was that odd sliver of time when everyone had either gone home from the bars or were crashing with their buddies or a floozy. And the early-morning shift was still slapping their snooze buttons for anither five minutes.\n\nI can call Niko when I get to Minnesota, I told myself. I can call him [[when I get to Minnesota]].\n

All I saw was Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will be Blood,” maniacally kicking at another man on the ground – a priest or his son or both – as hellfires and blasts of scalding crude seared the sky. And hard-luck ladies of the evening, oozing with sores and [[pale with frostbite]].

I was midway through watching “Beasts of the Southern Wild” for the fifth time, right at the part where Hushpuppy's daddy tells her that he misses her.\n\nBrandon interrupted me with an email, subject line "Bean Dip Casserole.” \n\n[[Then he called]], and I put Hushpuppy and her daddy on pause.

“We’ll have to talk about this later, Brandon,” I stammered. \n\n“What did he say when he saw how much you were making for driving a goddamned van?”\n\n“I’m not supposed to talk on the phone while I drive.” \n\nWith that, I [[hung up]] and threw the phone in my bag.\n

Coffee and sunrise greeted me downstairs in a now magically clean kitchen. \n\nUnder the unforgiving light of morning, my host greeted me, a little bleary-eyed, a little rumpled. Neither of us were morning people, I realized. It wasn't until our second cups of coffee that words came to the surface. But when they did, they were good ones.\n\n"We still have steaks left over. And beer. If you don't already have plans this evening."\n \nOf course I accepted. And I smiled with satisfaction as I walked out to my car, a brash metallic hulk catching the sun in a sea of beige homes. Yes, [[this will work]]. \n\n

There was a pause before my brother's reply. That doesn't happen often, so I took notice.\n\n"People get one chance in life, Melissa. If they're lucky. This is yours."\n\nBefore I could reply, he hung up. Some excuse about hockey practice - that county team he coached on and off - or chores or whatever.\n\nI thought about the conversation for [[a long time]].

Rabbit in the Moon, Tiesto, Air. \n\n"What, no Bjork from the home country?" I asked, and he just rolled his eyes. \n\n“Someone needs to acquaint you with a map of Northern Europe.”\n\nI reminded him that the condescending man is the man who sleeps alone.\n\nWhich perhaps was not the [[end result]] he was looking for.

It wasn't even seven, and already the day's business had [[started up]]. A girl who was still a teenager, pimples and all, signed me in and directed me to a folding chair.

Brandon is the older one. The first born. The big deal of the family. He’d run the farm without our parents’ help for some time, raised two kids – now teenagers, polite and reasonably non-delinquent as far as I could tell in the few hours a month I spent with them. \n\nHis wife Shelly - cheerful, practical, infinitely competent - had popped those kids out right after college. Because that's what people do in redneck rural Minnesota.\n\nBut enough about Brandon. Let's talk [[about me.]]\n\n

What I didn’t tell him: By “some of it,” I meant “less than two thousand.” \n\nRaymond must not be taking out taxes, I thought. Had I ever even seen a pay stub? Or a W-2? This was going to be a pain in the ass to report, I realized.\n\nI [[closed my laptop]] and changed the subject.

“Yeah, I agree. it’s pretty great.” \n\nSpeak for yourself, I thought. I could tell Niko's conversation was wrapping up, so I [[tossed the phone]] across the room in the direction of my backpack. \n\n

Inevitably, the day arrived. My day off. \n\nI [[prepared]] for a nighttime departure, sneaking off under the cover of darkness, the roads empty and clear.

And setting up that apartment for them during the week.\n\nLike - you worry about me, a grown adult (packing a gun, too) in a prairie wasteland where everyone's too busy raping the earth and making money to even think about raping me.\n\nYet you think it's totally fine to send two teenagers to live [[on their own]] in the heart of Minneapolis.\n\n

Depends, I told him. Practical stuff early in the morning. You know, crap like do I need to buy more toothpaste. Art and design stuff near the end of the day when I let my mind wander.\n\nSometimes I thought about the farm and growing up, especially when the roads were clear and there was a big stretch between deliveries.\n\nI wondered about the guys who lived in the camps, the guys I was helping feed but never saw. Where did they come from? \n\nNot that much about work or life in the city. That seemed like another person and another life, to be honest.\n\n"But that's not a bad thing," I reassured him. "[[All good.]]"\n\n\n

Mom had a plate waiting. “So good to see you. You need to eat. They work you too hard at that place.” \n\nPa Ingalls work ethic during my youth, Jimmy Buffett ethos in retirement. That's my folks.\n\nI had to remind myself to give her a recap of the route from Minneapolis, not the roads [[out by Fargo]].

And I looked forward to my return to Williston. \n\nNiko was waiting for me in the driveway, wearing a t-shirt and shorts because he's just fucking crazy. He was hosing down his car with the snowbanks melting behind him. A 40-degree heat wave. \n \nWe uncorked one of North Dakota’s best bottles of wine. We toasted to [[our good fortune]] and the temperate weather.

Too soulful. Too sad. Besides, I had always wanted to be Juliette Binoche, and Juliette Binoche would never find herself alone on a holiday in the middle of North Dakota, scrounging with grubby fingernails through her DVDs for a [[Christmas movie]], the highlight of her pathetic day.

He agreed with me: Williston was a truly fucked-up place. \n\nThe crowded roads. The quirky new businesses that popped up and disappeared on a daily basis. \n\nThe 10 men for every woman. ("Although I'm surprised to hear you object to that," he commented.) \n\nAnd the astonishing fact that North Dakota had actually become a desirable place to live for many people. Strike oil. Make money. Deal with the environment later. [[All good.]] Such was the American story.

"I'd like to stick with under a million."\n\n"He is obviously doing something illegal," this guy Niko observed.\n\nI agreed. "I'll bet you a round of beers we'll see him on America's Most Wanted in a few months for insider trading."\n\n"America's Most Wanted was discontinued two years ago," he informed me. He knew this fun fact from his former home in Wyoming, where TV selections had been limited.\n\nAfter our white collar criminal Jon selected the larger of the two villas, the one with the infinity pool and full-time butler, Niko [[asked]] me about my story.

“Are Mom and Dad really sick?”\n\n“Doesn’t matter.”\n\n“But they just flew back to Florida.”\n\n“[[Doesn’t matter]].”\n\n\n

Whatever Niko's motivations, the directions he gave to his home were impeccable, and thank God for that. For a small town in the middle of nowhere, Williston was a hot mess when it came to finding one's way around - an ungodly melange of warehouses, prairie Americana and new construction.\n\nNiko, of course, being a well-paid engineer lived in one of these pop-up developments - a phalanx of beige townhomes leading up to the big-ass golf course community in which Raymond was rumored to live. \n\nI felt a little weird. It had been a while since I had been invited into anyone's home, let alone [[a guy’s home]].\n\n\n

“By the way,” he continued in a casual tone I knew not to be casual in intent. \n\n“I talked to the locksmith yesterday. He told me that your key should be done soon. So before you know it,” he leaned in for [[a quick goodbye kiss]], one that I prolonged for a good minute more, “you can say goodbye to that camper for good.”

There are two different types of kissing in a situation like this. In the first, way too often, your brain's outside your body, looking down, critiquing the action, comparing and contrasting the technique. \n\nIn the second, you just want more. And you don't want it to end.\n\nWe didn’t [[stop]] until the next episode segued into scenic Akron.\n\nFuck Akron. Fuck the late hour, the long drive, the early wake-up call. I wanted to stay.

\nAnd those letters include f-u-c-k and y-o-u.\n\nBut Shelly meant well, and so I kept my [[mouth shut]].

Just then, the computer screen flickered and Raymond from Dickinson Catering's face appeared. It was like a Webex for work, only with a 50-something Quebecois in a shearling coat on the screen instead of some bespectacled, caffeine-jacked hipster.\n\nMy future employer looked like a fur trapper from some 1970s TV remake of "Sacajawea."\n\nBrandon started to joke about Montreal’s prospects for the Cup – which, for him, passes as witty banter - but [[Raymond]] cut straight to the chase.\n

We'd both spaced it. Such was the way of oil field life, governed by weird days off and the only holiday of note payday twice a month. \n\nI deserve a holiday, [[I decided]] the next morning. We both do.\n\n\n

“You’ll be saying that when he turns you in to the cops.”\n\n“He’s not like that.”\n\n“You’ve known this guy, what, two months?”\n\n“[[What am I supposed to do]], Brandon?”\n

But they were in Florida - happily retired - and I was an adult, or so I 'd been told. I didn't want to worry them. More so, I didn't want to embarass myself.\n\nOf course, Brandon had more advice to give. This time - because he knew I wasn't paying attention - he couched it in his favored genre of "[[hockey as metaphor for life]]" because of course he did.

I remembered the trick I had learned from my dad: Run the engine for 10 minutes with the heat on full blast. Then turn the car off and savor this heat for the next 50.\n\nI wrapped myself in the emergency blanket, poised to move quickly if a skidding vehicle came my way [[out on that road]].\n\n

Brandon kept me apprised of Williston news. \n\nOf course Raymond had noted my absence. One day could be a hangover. This was oil country after all. Two days could be a cold or flu. But by the third day, Clayton's phone - and Brandon's, by proxy - was ringing off the hook. \n\nWhere the fuck was Melissa? Stacks and stacks of chili to deliver and no one there to deliver it. \n\n[[Had you heard from her?]]

[[North Dakota.]] That was the answer.

Those kids were still at that city school, home on the weekends they didn't have stuff going on. And sometimes Brandon even drove in to go to the hockey games, since they had season tickets now. \n\n"That's [[cool]]," I remarked.\n\n"Sweet ass seats," my nephew informed me, ducking the glare of his mother at the use of "ass." Must have been a prosperous year, I figured, realizing just how far removed from rural life I'd become.

If by "solo" you mean chatting up a group of teachers off duty over appetizers. \n\nDiscussing politics and world peace with a trio of Chevron project managers shipped in from Holland, Scotland and Georgia.\n\nAnd ending the night doing tequila shots with two Russian strippers who had the day off. I took photos throughout for Tristan's benefit, then shared a few with Brandon and Shelly because what the hell. \n\nThat was a mistake. Brandon [[hit the roof]].

Jesus fucking Christ, Brandon, there goes my business. I wailed, alone in the van, the one place where I could safely express my thoughts. \n\nThis adventure in North Dakota had been too good to be true. \n\nHow had I gotten myself into such a [[mess]]? \n

The next night, we stayed inside. Niko was unusually somber, complaining about sore muscles. Climbing around on something earlier that day, a flare stack maybe - hell if I knew. I still hadn't picked up all that oil field lingo. No need to now.\n\nEager to have other problems to focus on, I ordered him to submit himself to my powers as a masseuse. \n\n“Did you ever [[spring for one of these]] in all your travels?” I asked. “I always thought they were crazy expensive.”\n

And so the weeks passed. Less money, no job. Less money, no job. Yeah, that shit gets old.\n\nAs a teenager, whenever I got frustrated, Shelly would tell me to look for the teachable moments in a situation. Because she's that kind of person.\n\nWhat things did I see that I hadn't noticed before? What did I [[learn]]?\n\n\n\n

I had a loft apartment in downtown St. Paul. I was always out and about - the best restaurants, the clubs and parties no one else heard about until weeks later. I worked out. I drank coconut water. People liked me. "You are a lucky girl," I'd tell myself (silently or in private, of course).\n\n[[How wrong I was.]]

"That real estate agent has got to be in her seventies," I noted. \n\n“She spends a lot of time in the sun. You can tell.”\n\nWe watched rapt as the human stick of beef jerky led Jon the financial consultant to a cool, air-conditioned office. “What is your [[budget]]?”\n

Shale dust was noxious and terrible, coated everything in its path. Niko said he usually hired a housekeeper for these months, and I knew Brandon and Shelly would snort with contempt if I ever told them. One guy with no kids hiring a housekeeper. Toughen the fuck up. \n\nBut [[what did I know]]?\n

“Raymond Fournier is tied in with the Sinaloa cartel.” \n\n“So?”\n\n“This is big stuff, Melissa. [[Really big stuff.]]”\n

So being pissed off isn't an appropriate response to being entangled in a drug ring without one's knowledge?\n\nBut Shelly meant well, and so I kept my [[mouth shut]].

Later that night, I couldn't sleep. I [[continued to plan]] for my new business. \n\nAnd the following afternoon, a [[call from Brandon]] interrupted those plans.

For my daily lunches, I stopped by McDonald's while Gretta and the crew reloaded my van. \n\nThe two sisters –one light-haired, one dark-haired – were back. I now referred to them as the Army Wives after seeing a man in a camo jacket dart to drop off a diaper bag.\n\nAs I picked through the salad that represented the least of the evils on this supersized menu, I found myself scrolling through Facebook on my phone less and less and [[watching their melee]] more and more.\n

This time, that statement to my brother was actually true.\n\nOver dinner Niko and I discussed his work (engineering stuff I pretended to understand), my work (the crazy shit one sees while driving), life and this [[singular locale]] where we both now found ourselves. \n\n"What do you [[think about]] when you drive around all day?"\n\n"So what's a [[normal evening]] here at Chez Niko - you know, when you're not entertaining women folk and all?"\n\nAfter dinner, we [[retreated to the couch]].

As I drove, I plotted my path to world domination - or at least domination of the youth custom goalie mask market. \n\nStart here, in North Dakota. Then Minneapolis. \n\nAnd once I owned these markets, I had Boston, Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Detroit. Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg. No way in hell was I driving or flying all the way up to Edmonton or Calgary. Also, customs. Currency exchange.\n\n[[After work]], the planning continued.

I hadn't talked about work much with him until now. Because here I was in North fucking Dakota, so obviously I wasn't that great of a designer.\n\nNiko flipped through the images on my phone for a long, silent time. "These are good," he finally declared. "Your company was stupid to let you go." \n\nI reminded him that I had tried for other jobs but came up with nothing.\n\n"How long did you try?"\n\n"[[Two months.]]"\n\n \n

The dining room, right down to the furniture, felt like home. Hummel figurines on the hutch. Furniture from at least three decades past, including a table with a removable leaf for the holidays. Tater tot casserole with cream of mushroom soup and fried crunchy things on top - a veritable fest of gluten and encroaching obesity. \n\nMy ass will be the size of Canada, I thought and [[dove in]] anyway.

“Please don’t be offended, Melissa, but is that balance correct? That amount is more than what I made my entire first year in Denver. A year's salary. As an engineer.”\n\nUnder normal conditions, I would have been offended by all that. But nothing in my current life was normal.\n\n“It’s not all Dickinson Catering money,” I stammered. “[[Some of it]] is my savings from Minneapolis.”\n

"This isn't summer camp or spring break at Padre or wherever the hell you all went that year. Or Europe. It's a different world out there," said my brother, he who had never given a shit about my safety during the ten-plus years I'd lived in Minneapolis, an actual urban area.\n\nNow I pictured a Bosch scene of hellfires and debauchery, or an episode from “The Wire.”\n\nI am Stringer Bell, I told myself, a white woman on the Midwestern Prairie. I am up for this.\n\n[[Bring it on]].

"I want my babyback, babyback, babyback..."\n\nRibs. Nearly 1,000 calories. And that was among the healthier options.\n\nI will not let myself go in this wasteland, I vowed to myself, [[no]], even though I hadn't been out on a date in months or been laid in - well, let's not even go there - I wasn't going to let it happen.

Since I now lived and worked away from other people, I found myself muttering out loud both mundane observations and big questions. \n\nHow much money was I making? How long should I stay here? How and when should I make the [[decision]] to leave?\n\nAnd the big granddaddy of them all: What the hell had happened to my life?\n\n

"It's seriously cold," I complained in our next call. \n\nI attempted to file my nails (rough, very rough) as my brother and sister-in-law went on their usual spiel: you've got two propane heaters, sleeping bag tested for the Arctic, blah blah...\n\nHow long do I have left? How long do I need to keep on doing this before Raymond will be pissed at my leaving?"\n\n"[[Check your bank account]]," Brandon interjected.

I stared at [[Brandon]], slack-jawed. \n\nWas he insane? I would freeze to death.\n\n

Eventually I unfolded Raymond Fournier’s directions. One bumpy gravel road after another, then just tire tracks in the snow, which is good times when you’re towing a camper with a two-door Hyundai in the middle of [[North Dakota in winter]], let me tell you. \n\nI double and triple-checked the landmarks: Abandoned church. Combine at rest. Deer. More deer.

“Just make sure the door’s locked behind you when you head out.” \n\nEarlier in the morning, Niko had given me these instructions. He took his last swig of coffee, a careful gulp given his unusual work attire of a suit and tie.\n\nMeetings, he explained. [[Visiting bigwigs]].

"I don't think this material is real silk," he declared, inspecting the situation quite diligently if I do say so myself. Then, "it's like I'm sleeping with somebody from Masterpiece Theater."\n\n"If you don't like these pajamas, you know what you can do about it," I informed him, and as if on cue, [[Brandon called]].

I rolled back the masking tape. I pulled back the flaps of cardboard, eager to dig into my treats. \n\nI peered in. Bags of tea? \n\nWell, that was an interesting choice for a bunch of burly oil workers in the middle of the prairie.\n\nBut [[this wasn’t tea]].\n

I could catch pieces of the conversation. It bounced between languages. “Dad, you would not believe this snowstorm. I know, I [[know]].” This would take a while.

Undaunted, my dining companion slid in closer. The show swooped in to somewhere in the Caribbean. \n\n"This show is ridiculous," he observed.\n\n"Jon, a financial consultant, wants to escape the rat race for tropical ease," the announcer introduced in her singsong voice. "But in a tight market, will his dreams of paradise… be lost?"\n\n"A literary episode," he commented dryly. \n\nNice. Maybe I'll [[let you stay]], foreign boy. \n\n

And so I ate my lunches at McDonald’s, chowing down and lying low while I waited for Gretta and the crew to reload my van. \n\nAnd at the end of the day, I turned in my keys for the night, took my final step outside and fired up my own inadequate-for-this-wasteland Hyundai. \n\nDestination: [[that Korean restaurant]], a 24-hour joint as it fortuitously turned out.\n\n

The security guard was dark-haired and skinny-faced. His expression was a hang-dog one. Because it must suck to be a rent-a-cop in Williston, North Dakota. \n\nHe appeared to be about our age, maybe younger. \n\n“Just a cooking emergency," Niko explained, bright red despite the icy breezes from the open windows. "But everything’s fine now.” \n\n“Is there [[something wrong]] with the stove?” the guard asked.\n\n\n

Maybe for just a few months. A person can endure for just a few months - it's all a matter of willpower, my family always taught me.\n\nShould I [[stay]] or should I go?

"She's looking for room to start a family. He wants to shorten his commute. Can this couple find the best of both worlds in sunny Austin?"\n\nNiko, visibly relieved, headed for the refrigerator.\n\n"We can actually do our drinking game with beer instead of green tea now. One sip for every mention of granite or a backsplash. Two for Jack and Jill sinks. And three for man cave, which I sincerely apologize for this house’s resemblance to."\n\nI grabbed a cold beer bottle from his hand, slipped off my shoes and [[curled up on the couch]]. A real couch! In someone’s house! And here he was apologizing for it. \n

The guard just gave me a look – silly bitch – and returned his attention to his clipboard. “You were in the living room.”\n\n“No, upstairs,” Niko answered.\n\n“[[Both]] of you?” \n

Point taken.\n\n"Don't fuck this up, Melissa."\n\nOkay already. For the next night's dinner, I'd try the little Korean restaurant. Koreans in North Dakota. They deserved a little love. Not much trouble I could get in there.\n\nAnd then it was [[February]].

"First question: Do you have a [[valid driver's license]]?"\n\nSecond question: Have you ever been arrested or fined for a [[traffic-related offense]]?"\n\n"Finally: Can you work long hours?"\n\nAre you kidding? I thought. I worked in advertising for 10 years, where a 40-hour work week is otherwise known as "part time." Where [[Red Bull]] is the fifth food group. \n\n

Once I was alone, I grabbed my phone out of my purse and [[launched the browser]].\n\nAny fool knows what pot looks like. But that bag of powder, the color of dirty sand? And those packets with the poorly rendered stencil of the pirate?\n\n

Engineers out here actually moved around, I had observed in my daily drives. They actually climbed on things. Big trucks. Derricks. Wells. Scaffolding. And as this guy walked over to the counter to fetch us a bottle of sriracha, I noted that he was in a hell of a lot better shape than the doughy creatures that haunted Minnesota's electronics stores. \n\nYou elevate your profession, sir and I [[like it]]. \n\nI sent him back, repeatedly, for condiments that night - soy sauce, sriracha, you name it - so I could verify my observations. The meal tasted like crap, with all those toppings, but I considered it a small sacrifice in support of a higher cause.

As I rambled on and on, [[he nodded]] and smiled. One trip overseas in 32 years. With a youth group. And here was someone who had been living in another country for years on end. Boy was I a hick.\n\n"What's the favorite place you've ever visited? A place no one would expect?" \n\nMine - outside of Paris - had been Winnipeg. Wait - yeah, maybe I wouldn't be able to share that one. Estonia was his answer.\n

Right after Labor Day - the irony - the five of us in the cubes by the skyway suddenly found ourselves walking down that skyway for the last time, \n\nboxes in hand, \n\nout of work.\n\n[[I should have seen the layoffs coming]].\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

No [[silk pajamas]] to make fun of this time.\n\n

No, she directed me to the Laundromat in Watford City instead. \n\nHere, on my first day off, I fed two twenties into the faulty quarter machine and jockeyed for bench space with a Mexican family and a couple of skate punks barely old enough to shave. \n\nOut the window: pawn shop, pawn shop, head shop. Every so often a pickup truck or SUV would plow through.\n\nAbove the doorway: [[blinking Christmas lights]] for a festive touch.\n

"It's because I'm fucking homeless. I live in a camper, sleep over at that restaurant because they let me and shower at goddamn truck stops." \n\nHe stared at me, looking alarmed.\n\n"You signed up for someone classy and I am not it.”\n\nWith that, he took a big swig of beer. When he finally spoke, it wasn't the conversational path [[I expected]]. \n\n\n \n\n\n \n\n

Now the guard was smirking. Beneath my layers, I could feel beads of sweat trickle down my skin. Hurry up with this, I thought. \n\nBefore the guard closed the front door behind him, he addressed us one last time. “You need to be more responsible. You have neighbors on both sides and there are dozens of expensive properties in this development.”\n\n“We’ll be careful,” Niko promised. \n\n[[And we were]].

"They know how to survive. They've been driving tractors since age eight. And Tyler knows I'll kick his ass if he knocks anybody up. Those girls out here are probably bigger sluts anyway."\n\nTruth that - but still.\n\nBrianna was not [[adjusting]] well.

I was soundly sleeping in the previous night’s attire - skinny jeans, that sexy sweater (well, okay, it somewhat fit my form and wasn't a turtleneck) - when I felt [[a hand on my shoulder]]. \n\n“Melissa, it’s six o’clock,” Niko [[whispered]]. \n\nOh fuck. I stumbled to [[the shower]].\n\n

My heart pounded as I drove back to Fleur de Lis Pointe. Niko's car was in the driveway. His employer had also let him take the day off after an unexpected overnight at the office. \n\nI buried my face in his shoulder. \n\n"You're still cold." He swiftly tucked me in beneath the big, expensive comforter and stayed with me until [[the phone rang]].\n\nI pretended to sleep, [[unable to speak]]. \n\n

As I wrestled my backpack from the trunk, my purse's strap slipped off my shoulder. The whole thing landed in a puddle. “Shit!” By now it was pouring. \n\nAfter a hot shower and a luxurious nap on the suddenly luxurious bed, I prepared to [[make my phone call]].\n\nYou'll never guess where I'm at right now, I'd tell him. You'll never guess what happened. But I'm coming back.\n

After hundreds of miles of flat, cold and gray, oil derrick after oil derrick began to dot the landscape. Trailers, mobile homes and long tin structures that looked like aircraft hangers soon followed. \n\nIn this land I would be [[calling home]], monster-sized pickups, semis and trailers joined me the road. A sneak preview of [[my work day]].\n\nFinally, I pulled into a driveway and up to a house. In the fading daylight, a beefy woman with a dirty-blond mullet was mucking around on the porch, shoving empty flower pots into a garbage bag. Just a sweatshirt, no coat. She nodded. Too cold for a smile or wave, apparently. "You must be Melissa. I'm [[Becca]]."\n\n

In high school, me and my few misfit friends ("the artsy crowd") would sneak over in the middle of the night to rearrange the letters.\n\n"Think for yourself, sheeple!" "Religion is the opiate of the masses."\n\nJanuary, February, [[March]] - we made it a good portion of the new year before we got caught.

“You need to [[get out]] of Williston.”

My concerns were staying awake during my tedious-ass route after such nocturnal activities. Also fielding messages from home.\n\nBrandon and Shelly wondered what was up, why all the unanswered calls and texts?\n\n"Target practice on Becca's farm," I lied. "Meditation. Bettering myself." I knew my libertarian brother would love that.\n\nThen I called up Tristan, who'd needed advice on a design question. He was at work, so I knew he wouldn't be doing anything. \n\n"You need [[music]]," he declared. \n\n

Four months in the area and I'd barely scratched the surface of my new home town, I realized. This neighborhood of [[the parents]] would be a new chapter to the story indeed.

The boy craned his head to look up, up, up into my face... \n\nand promptly [[started bawling]].

Never a fan. Steve Zissou couldn't drown in the Life Aquatic fast enough for my tastes. I could do better for my [[Christmas movie]].

I took a deep breath and smoothed down my skirt. Barely zipped. Comfortable living had added a few pounds.\n\nI sent Niko a quick text to let him know I had arrived. \n\nI parked halfway across the one-stoplight town, far enough away that the North Dakota dirt on its exterior would not [[arouse suspicion]].\n

I set the phone aside and booted up my laptop. Wifi, shockingly, came in lightning fast out in Becca's field. \n\nMust be all of the big oil companies nearby, had been Brandon's guess. But I remained skeptical. All these unsecured hot spots, named after Kid Rock songs.\n\nCyber warrior that I am, I popped onto the one with the most bars and logged into [[my bank account]].

"You're going to North Dakota? That’s so …interesting." (And at that dinner, with that pause, the gated community of my former life shut their gates on me.)\n\n"Are you going there to write a book?"(Yes, because great fiction actually does happen in an oil field.)\n\n“Is this for [[a blog]]?” (How early 2000s.)

But family bonding wasn't the only thing I planned to accomplish during this trip.\n\nThe next afternoon, when everyone else was napping off the potluck, I took a detour to Willmar. I tracked down the guy on Craigslist with airbrush equipment for my business. \n\nThe gear was in good shape but the setting was [[seedy as hell]]. \n\nThe establishment's main purpose was custom painting, predominantly flames and busty women on cars and pickups. But then there was the tattoo parlor, a gathering place for skinny rednecks twitching too noticeably for such detailed work. I watched a rough woman in camo get inked. Insane Clown Posse. Back of the calf. \n

It's no different than winter camping, Brandon assured me. And rents out in North Dakota were three, four thousand a month- money I'd want to save. \n\n"Think of it as a tiny house," he smirked.\n\nClayton had taken the thing up to the boundary waters many a winter day. “Toasty the whole time, [[just in my long johns]]."\n\nBrandon and I took [[inventory]] of the camper’s comforts. \n\n\n\n

Rush hour. In the middle of a wasteland. [[North Dakota in winter]]. This had better be an assload of money indeed.

It was a welcome diversion from all the cat memes and Father John Misty videos he'd be emailing me lately.\n \n“So it’s a home-cooked dinner. And I’ll take it,” I said. “But I think he’s just being nice.”\n\n“A guy doesn’t cook for a woman just to be nice. You are so [[getting laid]].” \n\nBack at my camper, I agonized over what to wear. One dress I tossed aside as too, well, who the hell wears a dress in North Dakota oil country? One sweater was too tight, another not tight enough. [[What if...]]\n\n

Then I saw that Tristan had called, so I whipped out the WhatsApp.\n\nThe new creative director, so mean, no direction, impossible deadlines- \n\n"Hang in there, young padawan," I texted back, along with some practical advice as well. Because no hard-working former intern of mine should still be at work at 9 p.m. on a Thursday night.\n\nThen I got to thinking about my [[own situation]].\n\n

"I think they're taking the realtor back for a three-way after the next property tour."\n\n"Now that I would [[like to see]]." \n

[[“Are you close?”]] He was an only child.\n\n\n

They need to do this show here in the oil fields, I thought one night, not realizing that I was actually voicing my [[thoughts]] aloud. \n\n"Three pimply rednecks seek crash pad. Budget unlimited. Man cave required. With room for the Ford F50 and a grill out back." \n\n[[“Williston doesn't have three vacant homes available to show.”]]

Every guy I passed by in my van was a meth head now. Every supervisor or shift manager was a dealer. I felt dirty driving by the bars and the strip clubs and the groups of homeless guys lined up for day labor.\n\nIf anyone at work would have asked, which they didn't, I would have explained my red eyes from [[the dust]] that emerged with the presence of spring. \n\n

"Raymond paid everyone under the table. Nothing withheld. You can start declaring through your business if you feel that strongly about giving back to the government. Those hockey masks will sell, especially with all those rich kids in the city."\n\nMy redneck brother. Legal, financial and business advisor. Who knew?\n\n"But I have to go to the authorities, tell [[my side of the story]]," I insisted.\n

"I'm chugging if they mention man cave," I said. \n\n"Twice if the man also requests an oversized garage for his jacked-up pick up."\n\n"And we can try to guess whether the same-sex roommates are actually a couple."\n\nNiko quashed this suggestion. “But how will we know if our guesses are right? The show never reveals it. Although if you’re trying to keep your sexual preference a secret, why would you go on national TV? We can only try to guess which property they pick."\n\n"What's [[the reward]] for guessing correctly?"\n

I schemed and scoured the internet to try to find a way to get back in touch with Niko.\n\nMaybe I could call his employer - the company obsessed with deadlines, stock prices and flagrant safety violations?\n\nMaybe I could just drive back out there - back to the town where everyone knows my drug-trafficking face, if not my name?\n\nYeah, dude's probably forgotten about me at this point, I decided. He's a good-looking guy. Makes decent money. Has the foreign thing going for him. Besides, technically I had ghosted him so [[there was that]] as well. \n\n

That's when my mind would wander.\n\nMy nephew and niece dispatched to the city. Me sent to North Dakota.\n\nThe web of lies surrounding my work. The outsized paycheck.\n\nThe amateur detective in me turned to [[Google]]:\n\n\n\n

“Security, from the homeowners’ association!” \n\nThe voice was on the younger side, with an East Coast twang, like Vinnie from Jersey Shore.\n\n“I’m going with you,” I insisted. “It’s [[my fault]] we’re in this mess anyway.”\n\n\n\n\n

“Are you [[shitting me]]?”

Like a damn Mossad agent, I rolled out of bed, down the steps and onto the front porch.\n\n"My family!" I hissed to Niko before swiping "accept." "I'm supposed to be in the woods."\n\n"Just checking in, Melissa," my brother's voice greeted me. "[[Everything okay]] out there?"\n\n\n

Yeah, my brother and sister-in-law schooled me thoroughly on the rape and assault statistics, leaving me with the impression that Williston, the main city if you will, was like the world’s most inland port or prison, filled with few women and thousands of randy men desperate for release. \n\n[[Bring it on]], North Dakota.

I wandered down the steps with the quilt around my shoulders to find Niko slouched in a kitchen chair, attempting like every morning to will himself awake as dawn barely broke through the blinds. \n\nI planted myself in front of him. "Need a cup of coffee?" he asked.\n\nCoffee, I informed him, sliding onto his lap, was not what [[I wanted]].\n\n

Had they [[shrunk]]?

Never mind that I designed ads for one of the largest retail behemouths on the planet. The classy one, not that [[trashy emporium]] (you know the one I'm talking about) where people shoot up in the bathrooms, unceremoniously fuck in the parking lots and poop in the aisles. \n\n

Lundqvist is a god in human form, someone even my most devout anti-sports friends could appreciate. Like he gives a shit who's taunting him. \n\nI was really not in the mood for [[hockey as metaphor for life]]. Not when one of those flame-painted goalie masks cost more than a year's rent on the beautiful, balconied, exquisitely parquet-floored apartment I soon would be forced to leave.

Like nothing had ever happened.\n\nI nodded. Yes, I was back.\n\n"Your room's still set up," he continued. "And you can use the garden house [[for your art]]."\n\n

"You need to find [[a truck stop]]," Tristan advised. "A big one, like Sapp Brothers, with all the bells and whistles."\n\nWe had started chatting right after the new year - killing time as I drove from delivery to delivery, and he procrastinated deadlines under the new creative director.\n\n

This involved locking up the camper's cupboards, storing away the propane and battening down the hatches. \n\nThe handgun, still wrapped in the Minnesota Wild scarf, I moved to the glove compartment. \n\nI [[filled up]] the car’s gas tank and topped off its fluid levels. I stocked the camper's kitchen with crackers, jerky and other non-perishables bought at Walmart.

Brandon tossed one of Tyler's hunting sleeping bags onto my bunk. "Certified to 20 below." \n\nThe trips to Cabela’s had stocked me with quite a stylish assortment of snow pants, sweatshirts and industrial-strength outdoor hoodies.\n\nShelly nodded approvingly at my look: androgynous sherpa. "The [[boyish look]] will serve you well.” \n\n

An arm embraced me from behind. Warm breath on my neck.\n\nI leaned back into it. Yeah, this was familiar.\n\nThis whole drug bust, campground, hiding out thing had never happened at all. \n\nIt'd all been a dream - a [[nasty, nasty]] - \n\n

I can’t say I was excited about North Dakota in the [[days before I left]]. That would have been stretching it. But I can say I felt a bit of adrenaline in my veins. \n\nMy survival instincts, reawakened, I gathered.

"Focus on your work," Tristan would have told me. Or maybe that was Brandon's advice, back when his advice was worth something. \n\nIn any case, that business idea was all I had. Well, that and a backlog of 77 subtitled, letterboxed indie movies I must have watched eight times each.\n\n[[Enough]], I told myself, one dewy morning cocking my gun at the camper doorway as I watched some meth-head rummage through the dumpster.

He had the presence of mind to call in to work before things got too out of hand. "Frozen fuel line, could be an hour or so," was the excuse and the next thing I knew that phone whizzed past my face to land with a soft pffft somewhere on the living room couch and work was the farthest thing from either of our minds.\n\nSo, what were the [[teachable moments]] of the next two hours? What did I learn from the experience? \n\n\n\n\n\n

\n\nAs my landlord asked me to renew my lease, and I knew I didn't have the cash to swing it, I spent hours updating [[my resume]].\n\nI [[blasted]] my resume to every online listing that included the words “art” and “design.”\n\nAnd during every public moment, I set forward the positive, optimistic face of a [[well-bred Minnesota girl]].\n

"There's more to the Netherlands than marijuana. Like architecture. And art."\n\n“Oh, I like art. We were going to take another trip to St. Petersburg. It was to see the Hermitage, which I was excited about. But then we learned that you needed to get a visa, and our youth group just didn't have its [[shit together]] enough for that.”\n\n\n\n

With the city just too depressing, I stayed over for the full holiday weekend. On Black Friday Brandon and Shelly's kids jumped into random beat-up vehicles with their friends, and we stayed behind at the house. \n\nBrandon suggested we say hi to Clayton at the farm next door - a 10-minute walk down a road that’s barely discernable in the snow and sorely rutted out in the spring and summer. \n\nI remembered Clayton [[vaguely from high school]] - a few years older, a fellow farm kid, hunter and fisher. He and Brandon had remained close over the years. [[Compatriots]] in camo. Brothers from another mother.

"You would fucking love this place, Tristan," I texted a description. The lights, both fluorescent and dim, cast an inadequate glow on a few plastic chairs and fold-out cafeteria tables. \n\nThe limited menu was amazing: spicy soup with chicken, spicy soup with beef and spicy soup with shrimp. With enough spice to heat up your blood and clear out your sinuses [[for days]]. \n\nEven better: The owners looked the other way when I shoved three seats together and lay myself across to sleep.\n\n

I packed up my old apartment and carted my possessions to the farm. In my new home, which Clayton had driven over to our driveway, I tried to make things pretty. Like a college freshman, I tacked art and photos onto every bit of useable wall space and draping scarves over the ugly plastic paneling. \n\n"Don’t go short on practical things," Shelly advised. "You don't want to be going [[to Walmart]] all of the time."\n\n\n

Houses weren't round. And Cayden [[definitely was]].

“Stop what you're doing. Pull up the Williston [[local TV website]] right now."

I learned nothing -\n\nexcept that Jagermeister still gets me wasted, a decade on from college.\n\n"Clayton, you're good," I mumbled as I stumbled over to the pullout bed to pass out, perhaps not the best choice of words in retrospect as I descended into a dream. I was back in North Dakota, back at the townhouse. Morning was just starting to break. I could hear the geese outside, a few trucks starting to rev up and [[join the traffic]].\n\n

Five days later, winter returned with a vengeance. \n\nBy 10 a.m., you could smell the snow in the air. \n\nBy the time I stopped at McDonald's to grab my salad and reload the van, the wind was whipping. The temperature had [[plummeted]]. \n\n

For the next several weeks, I called the Montevideo summer camp and RV park home and I lived like a hillbilly, like Jennifer Lawrence in “Winter’s Bone.” The park was closed until Memorial Day. But no one enforced this. Which made it [[the perfect hiding place]]. \n\nIf I [[kept my head down]] and remained inconspicuous, I told myself, I would be safe. [[I had to believe this.]] I had nothing else to believe in.

And so that image forever emblazoned itself in my brain - Clayton wantonly reclining on the pullout bed, plucking his grubby underthings from his even grubbier crevices. \n\nI turned to [[Brandon]] for a clue as to what to do next.

“You shared your banking information with this guy?" \n\n"Once, only once. He doesn't care. He has money of his own."\n\n"You [[stupid, stupid bitch]]. Melissa."\n\n\n\n

“I can’t really say,” I answered truthfully. “He got me this job out here. And he watches out for me. But we’re very different.”\n\nBut enough about Brandon. "I'm tired. Let's head [[to bed]]."\n\n\n\n

\nYeah, that went over well.\n\nThe room usually fell silent at that point.\n\nThe conversation had turned a little too [[“Grapes of Wrath”]] for everyone's tastes.

"How're you enjoying life out there?"\n\nHow was I enjoying life out there? How was I enjoying life?\n\nOh, he had the fucking gall to ask. I was fucking freezing my ass off, fucking driving around in a truck all day and fucking camping out like a goddamn ice fisherman by night. Surely there had to be more to life than this fucking existence. \n\n“Jesus Christ Melissa” Brandon responded as though the f-word had neither touched his virgin ears nor emanated from his own mouth on a near-hourly basis. “You’re starting to [[talk like a thug]]. Who are you [[hanging out with]] out there?”

From there, he quickly got a job with a big oil company and moved to Wyoming. There he found himself a little house and an acre of land and a girlfriend. "It was quiet and peaceful. I liked it there." \n\nGoddamn it. But why then was he spending his nights at a shady repurposed Pamida turned restaurant? "Are you still-"\n\n"It was several years ago. She didn't want to move to North Dakota." \n\nFancy that. “Do you [[like it]] here?” I asked.

The music and credits started to roll on a new episode.\n\n"Cara came to Amsterdam to pursue a graduate degree. But will the tight rental market teach her about compromise instead?"\n\n"Have you ever been to [[Amsterdam]]?" I asked Niko.\n\n

For further research, Niko, now my business advisor as well, directed me to even more websites of guys who designed masks for the NHL. Dragons, zombies, cartoon characters.\n\nI could [[do that]]. Of course, I would need the right equipment. And a studio.\n\n\n

Unlike my relative's house in Sleepy Eye - which, like the entire town, was a fly trapped in amber, timeless as the world changed around it - this wasn’t the rural Minnesota [[I remembered]] from my youth.

The sad face worked. Take the time you need, he told me. They'd have one of the boys in the kitchen take over. \n\n"Give your parents my best. Clayton’s always spoken very highly of them.” \n\nThen I drove out to the camper to pack for the trip. After a winter of long underwear and snow pants, it was shocking how flimsy and insubstantial my city wardrobe seemed now. How had I not frozen my ass off in these outfits before? \n\nJust in case, I dropped a note into Becca and Larry’s mailbox explaining why I wouldn't be around for a few days. As if [[the vehicle]] actually spent significant time on their property. \n

“Not at all," Niko replied. "It’s [[obvious]] you’re not using me for my money."

Don’t get Brandon started about Obama. \n\nNot up for his mercilessly taunting my communist-by-Faribault-County-standards political views, I [[changed the subject]].

I took advantage of the establishment's warmth and comfort, its flavorful, somewhat healthy food, its 24/7, no-questions-asked availability as a crash pad. \n\nAnd its unexpected entertainment options.\n\nA little TV in the corner, likely manufactured in a year that began with "19", aired exactly one channel and one [[show]].

\n\nI also discovered [[how people treat you]] when they see you as competition (bitchy) or insignificant (they don't even bother). \n\n\n\n\n

Up and down the main drag I drove - downtown, strip mall, fire station, high school. Whip into the gas station parking lot and do it again.\n\nJust like my high school days back in Faribault County, only flatter, colder and illuminated by flare stacks. Also no flask of cheap rum in the glove compartment.\n\nAfter-work relaxation in a petroleum boomtown is [[no easy task]], I discovered. Especially when you're a lone woman and especialy when you're filthy.

"Mom's pissed because I'm not doing my homework."\n\n"But you have that nice camera they bought you a few years ago," I countered.\n\n"It's not as fun here."\n\n"The city's a cool place, Brianna. You just have to [[give it]] a chance."\n\n

Althought that statement brought the other mothers to tears, I took issue with [[only one aspect]] of it.

The grim reaper of the free market lobbed his [[fucking scythe]] at me. \n\nWhat did my brother Brandon [[have to say]] about that?

\n"narcotics midwest recent busts" "sinaloa cartel Williston North Dakota" "Raymond Fournier criminal record" "average sentence involuntary drug trafficking" "plea deal witness protection"\n\nWhat I found disturbed, disgusted and fascinated me.\n\nBut family is [[family]] and home is home after all.\n\n

"And I think we can eliminate Casa de los Perros," said the man. "It was way over our budget."\n\n"But the pool." The wife gazed up at him with appropriately limpen puppy-dog eyes.\n\n"Always the woman who doesn't care about budget," Niko commented, still flipping through the photos I'd taken.\n\n"I care about budget," I defended myself.\n\n"You’re not on these shows. You’re [[sensible]]."\n

Looking back, I think I actually did and just repressed it. Suppressed it. Whatever. There were [[signs]] - there always are. \n\nBut to be honest, I didn’t think that a reduction in force could [[apply to me]]: \n- an established designer\n- a mentor with an intern of her own (who actually worked)\n- fair to pretty (because sadly this matters in our world when you're a chick) \n\n

And then an ear-splitting beep cut the air. \n\nSmoke hit my nostrils. I opened my eyes to a [[fog of smoke]].

The reply was swift. \n\n“Shit, Melissa. We need to talk about this later in a conversation. From a pay phone.”\n\n“Where the hell am I going to find one of those? What did you [[get me into]]?”\n

I was eating my lunch sans balaclava for the first time. Spring was approaching after all.\n\n"No [[self-respecting oil worker]] would eat a McDonald’s salad."

I had forgotten. I was still wearing my don't-fuck-with-me [[balaclava]].

“She’s hot,” I heard him comment once, at the [[afternoon]] reception right after I walked the stage our my 32-student high school to receive my diploma. “Hands off my sister,” had been Brandon’s retort.

Maybe I just hadn’t seen them in a while. I quickly hid my shock and walked over.\n\nFrom the kitchen, wearing some floral monstrousity of a dress, Shelly winked. Through a sea of cousins and strangers - who the hell were half these people? - I spotted Brandon out on the back porch. Manning the keg and [[enjoying a smoke]] as usual. \n\n\n

“No,” I stammered. \n\nSo he told me about [[a hockey player]].

"You nasty, nasty girl."\n\nI snapped my eyes open to find myself straddling a man, but not in North Dakota and definitely not the man of my choice.\n\nFortunately my clothes were still on and adrelaline - those primitive flight-or-fight instincts - sobered me up immediately.\n\nReader, I [[slapped him]]. \n\n\n

"Join me for a thank you," I offered and back into the camper we went - the bottle and [[two shot glasses]] waiting at the tiny fold-out table.\n\nPerhaps one of the more ill-advised gambits of my life.\n

My head spun. \n\nMy breath caught in my throat.\n\nNo wonder Raymond's paychecks had been [[so generous]].

Tristan went on about the product catalog, the links to YouTube videos of hockey's best fights, an interactive feature that would morph a child's head onto the body of an NHL all star. "Beast mode," he dubbed it. "But not in a creepy way." \n\nAnd then the grand finale, [[the tagline]]:\n

Then the smaller, boutique firms slimmed down. Some even shut entirely. The Twin Cities saw a [[big uptick]] in second-career tattoo artists, freelance brand ambassadors and "solo practitioners" that fall. Caribou Coffee damn near overflowed with Mac Airs, Moleskine notebooks and their skinny-jeaned owners.\n\n

The next morning, I stocked up my backpack with markers, pencils and sketch pads. At Walmart, which was the closest thing to an art supply store out here, but it would have to work for now.\n\nAnd I got back in the groove of my art. Faster than expected, my skills came back to me. I sketched flowers, faces, animals, abstract designs. I scanned in a few to email to my mom and dad, along with some Minneapolis city photos I'd asked Tristan to take to continue the ruse that I [[still lived]] there. \n\n

And because the boring stuff is what makes or breaks a business, I became an expert in trademarks, patent and tax law.\n\nAt night, with the Euro chill compilation Niko had mixed for me as background, I [[honed my craft]].

\n\nI learned that a checking account [[drains]] really fast with nothing to replenish it. Same with a savings account.\n\n

I was the artist of the family, well read, a traveler. Okay, I went to Europe only once. But I was a fucking expert on films with angst, subtitles, pensive smokers and Vincent Cassel. I was a well-read connoisseur of foreign things and people.\n\nMy [[descent]] into redneck-istan, my journey to white trashville would be long and painful.

Let's go upstairs to the spare room to watch the sunset, I suggested. It had no furniture, but it did possess a sweet skylight.\n\nThe days were getting longer by now, and the prairie skies at dusk were incredible. This North Dakota place was starting to grow on me.\n\n“You [[don’t mind]] me spending so much time over here, do you?” I asked as we sprawled out on the floor under the fading colors, a question I should have first posed back in February.\n

Of course he did. One his daughter had a big crush on. \n\nThey didn't play him consistently. So he got rusty. And then he messed up his foot stepping on a puck. And now he's in Buffalo.\n\nI would not end up in Buffalo, I decided. I would [[resume my drawing]].

Farm life had aged my parents [[before their time]], I realized.\n\nAnd you chose this life on purpose?\n\nSo many things I wanted to ask my brother - even beyond "why have you and Shelly been acting so damn odd lately?" - but he rebuffed any attempt I made to corner him for a private conversation.

Through the blaring train whistle, I blurted my answers.\n\nFinally, does he have a name? First and last - which was Shelly's big thing when I hooked up with boys in high school. Don't swap bodily fluids without asking for the full information.\n\nAnd through the train whistle I gave them [[that answer]] as well.\n

She and her husband Larry - yes, just like the Cable Guy, you cannot make this shit up sometimes - directed me to a field a surprisingly far distance away from the farmhouse, then a small stand of trees in this field. \n\nShe didn't talk much, but to her credit she did help me unhitch the camper from my car. And she did notice me staring anxiously into the darkening landscape. "It's plenty safe out here. Just a few deer in the morning and the geese. Larry has his [[shotgun]].\n\n"Why don't you [[rest up a bit]] after your drive. I'll have [[supper]] in an hour."\n\n\n

The first time I had seen him [[completely distracted]].

\n\n"A Hyundai doesn't have a diesel fuel line. Yes, Raymond told me, and any fool knows that. Where were you?"\n\nNot the best timing, I realized, but they'd need to find out about Niko sometime and so I [[told them]].\n\n

When Brandon emailed me this news under the subject line “Green Goddess Hot Dish,” [[I felt dirty]]. Irresponsible. Like one of those high school drop outs who was always making Poor Life Choices and not upholding their obligations. \n\nThen I snapped out of it. Who the fuck was I kidding? Raymond was a drug dealer and Dickinson Catering was a front. It's not like I'd be using him as a reference any time soon.

Out here, “fuck” wasn’t cussing, I wanted to [[reassure him]]. It was language - noun, verb, adjective, adverb and exclamation. You didn't need to step foot in a bar to hear it. You just needed to sit at a traffic light with your stereo down for five seconds.

Night one I tried [[Applebees]]. Because a woman works with the tools she's been given.\n\nNight two I ventured into [[Chili's]].\n\nNight three I found a [[local joint]], a supposed hot spot. \n\nAnd on the fourth night, I feasted at [[Red Lobster]].\n

By the time I hit the main road, I was weeping. From fear, from sadness, from relief - who knew?\n\nNo camper left behind in the dust due to my poor hitching skills. No Becca yelling after me from the porch, no headlights closing in on me or speeding cars running me off the road for a [[Sinaloa-style]] execution. \n\nThe main roads were [[empty]]. \n\n

He took it, stared at me for a long moment, then threw it aside.\n\nAnd we ended up [[in the bedroom]].\n\n\n

Fuck you. And off I went, winter air blasting through my open window. I don't have children and I don't have the luxury of being a liberal anymore. \n\nWhen I reached a rest stop, I included a video of Sarah Palin in my reply. Not because I particularly like Sarah Palin – to the contrary – but because my awaiting life on the frontier was freshly motivating me to piss people off. \n\nEnter [[North Dakota in winter]].

But the shrieking kids in the ball pit made concentration impossible. \n\n"Take your drawing materials," Brandon suggested. "Start sketching and designing things again. In between hanging out with strippers and banging that guy, have you even [[done any of that]] since you got to North Dakota?”\n\n\n\n

I was scared to leave the camper. I was scared to turn on the lights or the TV or the radio. I was scared to move, except for checking and rechecking my email for [[updates from Brandon]].

“A lot of vice goes on in Williston."\n\nDidn't have to tell me that twice.\n\n"Even the place where those stripper girls you met work,"he continued. "[[Drugs and prostitution]], from what I hear.”

As my savings account dipped into four digits, I created a spread sheet with the best happy hour buffets and specials in town - enabling to keep up appearances while procuring basic nutrition. Sure, some carbs passed through my lips, but hard times call for drastic measures. \n\nUnder the auspices of "self care," I turned my apartment into a DIY spa, hand-touching my eyebrows and roots in a move I should have made several years - and [[thousands of dollars]] - ago. "Leisure time's treating you well, Melissa!" \n \n\n\n

"For the last time, Melissa," I could hear his sigh in the brief pause between messages, “life gives people one chance. One chance if they’re lucky. This is yours. Don’t fuck it up."\n\n\n[[Fast forward]]\n\n\n\n

Who does one have to blow to bring a Sweet Greens to this joint? \n\nI texted Tristan this as I bit into a forkful of iceberg lettuce. It was coated in dressing the color and taste of Caladryl ointment. \n\nBecause I would get down on my knees and perform that chore on even the [[hairiest]] of North Dakota's men if it meant getting a decent salad for once. \n\n

And I certainly did not tell Brandon and Shelly that I found myself alone on December 25. \n\nWhat about [[Raymond?]], they would have asked.\n\nWhat about [[Becca and Larry?]]\n\nWhat would [[the family]] think?

I went online obsessively to check my bank balance - whew, still there - and distract myself on sites with stupid cat videos and ill-advised Facebook posts. I religiously avoided the news.\n\nEspecially any news about fracking, Keystone XL or [[North Dakota]].\n\n \n

"You think you have problems, Melissa? Seriously? How complicated can living in an apartment with no kids or responsibilities be?"\n\nYou don't know a thing [[about me.]] I wanted to tell him - and our parents and Shelly - this. Because they didn't.

Of course, with me shouting the word "emergency" from the bathroom doorway, he bounded up the stairs. Two at a time. Impressive. \n\nAnd obviously expecting [[more of an emergency]] than an empty soap bottle. \n

Without kitchen facilities in the camps, or enough fast food places to keep up with the population boom, the workers were in a quandary, as were the employers who relied on them to spend 90 hours a week extracting their island retirement funds from the earth. \n\nI could do well there, Clayton assured me. Amazing wages despite the [[brain]]less nature of the labor.\n\n“A shit-ton of [[money]],” were his exact words.\n\nThe spigot for such largess? [[Dickinson Catering]] - a mom and pop that saw the need for food and filled it, quite tastily and lucratively. \n\n\n

God no, I shuddered.\n\n"And you won't have a lot of time off to do so," Brandon added. He informed me that [[weekends weren’t really a concept]] out there in North Dakota, not with lucrative resources in the ground lying in wait.

\nDefinitely not steak dinners every night, he replied. "I'd be broke. And on my way to a heart attack." Usually there was a book. Maybe a little TV or skyping with his dad. Last year he set up a beer-brewing enterprise with a few guys from work but then that team got transferred to Alaska.\n\nSometimes he'd clear his head with a walk in the fresh cold air. ("Your people must be into that," I remarked to which he rolled his eyes.) In the summer, he'd drag out the grill, fry up a few fish, then stay out on the patio to watch he stars.\n\n"Holy Christ you sound like my brother," I blurted out. "But not a redneck," I quickly added. No offense taken. [[All good.]]\n\n

"A lady is hiring me on Saturday for her kid's birthday," I [[informed]] Niko. "To paint goalie masks. Her husband works for Chevron, so the money's really good."\n\n\n

I followed Dark-Haired Army Wife’s instructions to a [[yet-unexplored]] section of Williston. \n\nThe subdivision was a lot like Fleur de Lis Pointe, only bigger, bolder and more beige, if such a thing was possible. \n\nThis was some serious coin. Army Husband must have achieved a high rank before leaving Afghanistan for this wasteland.\n\nThe driveway was filled with salt-encrusted mom vans, forcing me to park halfway down the block. \n\nWhen I opened the door - "just come on in!" - [[the noise]] nearly bowled me over.\n

"I can [[design]] a website for you."

“Not a word of this to Mom and Dad,” was Brandon's warning about the whole North Dakota scheme. Which should have given me a clue.\n\n“No worries about that," I assured him and [[Shelly]]. "I still haven't told them that I’ve been laid off.”\n

"Are you sure it's safe?" Shelly asked.\n\nSafer working as a drug mule in North Dakota. Safer than that goddamn campground I'd been forced to hide out in. \n\nAnd safer than the back country roads as I [[[drove up north]] to grow my business.

Maybe he was missing that [[long-ago girlfriend]] from Wyoming. \n\n

I couldn't tell what the hold-up was, and I was afraid to ask, given all the yelling that suddenly was the norm in the kitchen. But it frustrated me. It put me a full hour behind on my routes, and severely cut into the few hours of my day when I could do what I wanted. \n\nAt first I brought a [[book]] with me to McDonald's to kill the time and quell my irritation.\n\n

Sorting through the possessions in storage was the fastest part. Keep, sell, trash. Keep, sell, trash.\n\nThen incorporating my business for real. Reaching out to the contacts I'd researched while in hiding. Refining my airbrushing technique. Honing my craft. Reviving that website Tristan had set up.\n\n"That's really [[cool]]," my niece Brianna watched from the doorway.

Not much, I thought, as I questioned the wisdom of this decision. \n\nDid the occasional sighting of a work baby or a friend baby count, swaddled in hypoallergenic cloth and accompanied by discussions of good schools and productive stools?\n\nBut I could learn. If it was an opportunity to [[make some money]], I could learn.\n\n

I rehearsed all the things I would need to say to keep my story straight. These family members may be distant, but they sure were nosy if I recalled correctly.\n\nSpring was in the air, patches of green and brown just breaking through the snow.\n\nI rolled in just in time for dinner. \n\n[[Here goes.]]

Not so much. I hurled that crap out the window by lunchtime. Any [[music]], even the crappiest boy band pop, must be better than this.

My thumbs paused over my keyboard. \n\nSomething about all of this felt [[a little suspicious]].\n

And now he was walking over. He was easy on the eyes, but I was in no mood for being bothered.\n\n"I see you here every night."\n\nHe pulled up a chair and sat down. Of course he did. \n\nThe guy had [[an accent]]. I couldn't place it. \n

That dinner. Frustrated with the long lines at even the most substandard Williston eatery, I purchased that last pizza from beneath the heat lamps of the Kum and Go and gave myself the most explosive diarrhea of my life.\n\nMy connouseurship of Williston’s public facilities. I could write a blog with my growing knowledge and insider recommendations, particularly the ones least likely to be home to pee stains, odd smells and junkies shooting up and most likely to have heat, ample toilet paper and soap.\n\nMy dilemma after two weeks. I was down to my last pair of underwear. Time to [[approach Becca]], the mistress of my campsite.

Except that one night.\n\nYou work hard, you get into a groove, you just space on the most obvious stuff.\n\nBut a person never truly overlooks something. That's what Brandon always told me, back on the farm around the elements and livestock and life and death where [[that shit mattered]].